


Lavender and Deduction

by clickingkeyboards



Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: "The Prince of Bengal", 1930s, 1930s Murder Lesbians, Attempted Kidnapping, Attempted Murder, Canon Character of Color, Canon Lesbian Character, Closeted Character, Detectives, F/F, Family, Family Drama, Family Fluff, Fluff, Letters, Love Letters, M/M, Murder, Secret Relationship, chosen family, slightly OOC George Mukerjee
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2020-11-04 13:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20751014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are back at Deepdean School for Girls after the summer of 1936 with new reputations as young detectives and their faces printed in newspapers above headlines showering them with praise for the dramatic murder they solved over their holidays.As the Weston and Deepdean Social begins, they begin to detect the loves lives of themselves and the others.When Mr Miller is murdered in the Majestic Hotel (where the Weston students and teachers are staying for the duration of the social), the detectives have to put their romantic struggles aside to get to the bottom of the mystery - and recover a notebook that, if it got out, could ruin George Mukerjee's life.





	1. Setting The Stage

**Lavender and Deduction**

  
Being an account of  


The Case of the Covert Love Letters,  
an investigation by the Wells and Wong Detective Society  
(assisted by The Junior Pinkertons).

Written by Hazel Wong  
(Detective Society Vice-President and Secretary), aged 15,  
and Alexander Arcady  
(Junior Pinkertons’ Co-Chair), aged 15.

  
Begun Tuesday 8th September 1936.

* * *

**THE CHARACTERS**

**(updated as the mystery progresses)**

**DEEPDEAN STUDENTS**

Daisy Wells – _Fifth Former and President of the Wells & Wong Detective Society_

Hazel Wong – _Fifth Former and Vice-President and Secretary of the Wells & Wong Detective Society_

Lavinia Temple – _Fifth Former Detective Society Member_

Rebecca ‘Beanie’ Martineau – _Fifth Former Detective Society Member_

Kitty Freebody – _Fifth Former Detective Society Member_

**WESTON STUDENTS**

**Fifth Formers:**

Alexander Arcady – _Co-Chair of the Junior Pinkertons_

George Mukherjee – _Co-Chair of the Junior Pinkertons_

Bob Featherstonehaugh – _friend of the Junior Pinkertons_

Thomas Jenkins

Louis Manning

Otto Gallagher – _brother of Elliot Gallagher_

Isaac Fletcher

Samuel Burns

Rufus Moore

Duke Elliot

**Sixth Formers:**

Marvin Taylor – _friend of the Junior Pinkertons and member of the Weston rugby team_

Micah Wright – _friend of the Junior Pinkertons and member of the Weston rugby team_

Nicolas Van der Velde

Aisen Spackman 

Finley Simpson

Isaac Jones

Jude Graham

Elliot Gallagher

Michael Burton

Peter Nithercott

**Seventh Formers:**

Thomas Balakrishnan - _captain of the Weston rugby team_

**WESTON TEACHERS  
**

Mr Miller (English)

* * *

**MAPS**

_ <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RFPJdSuCqMkgYZK4nRnsYacyc10RP9rT7FON8amamnk/edit> _


	2. Part One - The Letters We Wrote (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the way Inspector Priestly is carrying on, you would think that George and Alexander committed the murder themselves. Considering that I don't have much to write up yet, I have enclosed the rather telling letters that prefaced the Weston and Deepdean Social.

Tuesday 8th September 1936, Weston School

Dear Hazel,

Gosh, it’s been dreadfully boring without you all holiday! The Detective Society had better meet up with the Junior Pinkertons for ices soon and tell us all about the case. It all sounds very cloak-and-dagger, but I know you were even more involved than all the newspapers make it out to be. Newspapers talk of two girl detectives who sat pretty and dainty in their dresses and figured it all out without lifting a finger. I know you two and I know your investigation was as unglamorous as anything. How many roofs did you climb on, how many adults did you lie to, and how many crocodile tears did you cry? We want to know, Hazel! We’re getting dreadfully bored over here.

As you told me about your predicament with Daisy, it’s only fair that I proffer information about my own. First, I don’t care if you’re partial to both genders because I’m the same. I’ll do all I can to protect yours and Daisy’s secrets and I hope you’ll do the same in return. As for who I like at present: he is not somebody my grandmother would approve of even if he were a girl. Astonishment - which I am sure you are feeling - is the correct emotion. I’m in love with George Mukherjee.

Golly, it’s terrifying when you write it down like that, I feel ill looking back at it. I know that they could arrest me for intent to do you-know-what if this ever gets out and the strangest thing is that I don’t mind at all. He is so perfect (quite literally, have you ever seen somebody with such neat clothes?) that it all seems worth it.

We spent the summer together and alone. George's parents are busy people who travel daily and dine with a million different people, and Harold wasn’t with us either – he’s in Paris with Bertie, in case Daisy forgot to mention it. It’s odd; I’ve grown used to him being about in the holidays and George is feeling the absence harder than I have ever seen him affected by anything, even murder. We spent half the time we saw his parents assuring them that there is no unnatural relationship between Harold and Bertie. They're not as bad as my grandmother: she's worrisome about things like that and utterly unaware that her grandson is an aspiring sodomite – what an odd phrase! – and I prefer to keep it that way.

Being alone for five-sixths of the summer meant nothing less than amusing ourselves outside and lolling about the house dressed as casually as we pleased: I have now seen George with only trousers and an untucked and half-unbuttoned shirt, and I go red to think of it.

When I say we amused ourselves, it meant a lot of getting on and off trains to go to various events, museums, parades, and anything else we found in the newspaper that looked vaguely interesting. Right in the height of the summer, we travelled on the train to the fairground that bad been set up in the middle of nowhere in the countryside. After six hours of stomach-churning rides and far-too-sickly foods, we stumbled home and I swear when I saw I have never been happier in all my life, I am telling the truth.

George and I shared a pretzel – our noses bumped when we tried to take bites at the same time – and we also shared candyfloss that was sickly sweet and sticky. George insisted upon spending almost all his pocket money in those ridiculous stalls where you knock things down and get a prize that is usually a stuffed animal of some description at the end. He gave me one of the rather silly but still delightful things he won: a stuffed bear clutching a heart. It felt rather like a date, only missing a kiss to my cheek at the end of the night.

I bore you, I’m sure.

Now I know I have somebody to relate to who is far too kind and like-minded to ever rat me out, I am not likely to stop. All this romance business is infuriating; I have never been so happy and sad, so elated yet to crushed, so open and yet so guarded. Miserable, isn’t it? How I wish we could simply marry each other for convenience and be done with all this nonsense. However, love does not work that way.

Nothing interesting has happened at Weston yet this term, though it has only been a few days. We are so dreadfully bored that we've already swapped my new edition of Hardy Boys out for tomorrow's slogging duties so that we can snoop about the Sixth Formers' dorms. We haven't started our lessons yet, despite it being a Tuesday, because lots of students still haven't arrived. There are still two students out of our dorm left to arrive and the only other boy is one of those sorts who makes a rude gesture towards dorm pride and spends most of his time with the boys in the next dorm over. George is sprawled out on his bed and reading The Man In The Queue. He's attacking the pages with a pencil which I maintain is the very worst sort of thing you can do to a book. 

Apparently, we are supposed to be writing some dreadfully gruesome things in English, which would be exciting if my class were not so awful. If you believe Mr Strange's murder mystery writing to cover up his spy work was awful, you should read the hogwash some of the boys in my class write when they are genuinely trying. I shouldn't laugh at them, and I don't, but George does. At least he waits until we are alone to burst into raucous laughter and bemoan the lack of intelligence and creativity among our class. If you ever need a bad murder and a good laugh, I shall enclose some of their awful writing.

George says hello, and hopes you get back to us with details of your mystery soon.

Yours,  
Alexander Arcady

P.S.: do tell me about how Deepdean greeted you when you arrived back, I need something to read out to George that isn’t a response to my swooning over him.

* * *

Thursday 10th September 1936, Deepdean School

Dear Alexander,

I'll tell you all about the case when Daisy is quite finished milking her newfound fame and reclaiming her title as the goddess of Deepdean. It should be rather infuriating to me, but the shrimps have given me and her seven boxes of chocolates so far, so I am not complaining. As Daisy now realises her title earnt and that she can lose it at any moment, she is being rather kind to all the shrimps: they now receive back half of the chocolate they gift her, accompanied by quite a bit of praise.

You too?! Alexander, I have never been so pleased to be strange in all my life! I’m sure Daisy will be ecstatic if she ever finds out, and the three of us can be strange together. She pretends to not like you, but I know she’s secretly rather fond of you. I feel sorry for you, you sound so utterly gone over George. Do tell me other details, I am _ fascinated _now.

Daisy and I got back to Deepdean and were greeted with nothing short of fanfare. Amina was quite pleased to step out of the spotlight – apparently, she found it all quite stressful – and Daisy was over the moon to step back into it, though she barely showed it. The shrimps adore us (yes, us! They are now rather fond of me too!) so much it’s quite amusing, though I can’t say I appreciate all the attention.

Our privileges as the newfound royalty of Deepdean include:

  * pushing-in privileges.
  * treats from the shrimps (of which we give half back to the person that gave us them, as a thank you). 
  * an army of tiny students to run about and do things for us, which is fantastic for mysteries.
  * a reputation so saintly that nobody can possibly believe we would ever do anything wrong.
  * a sort of agreement with all students that they will help us smuggle in our contraband.
  * everybody staring at you as you walk just about anywhere. 

It’s fantastic if a little overwhelming at times.

Is that enough for you to satiate George’s curiosity with? I do hope so because I don’t have anything more to add to that list. 

This seems presumptuous and slightly rude but do either of you have any more rather interesting relatives we could holiday with? Daisy and I have exhausted our supply of curious people and I imagine you two know many an interesting person. As Daisy often says, “Perhaps you could get them to arrange a nice murder for us.” I would agree but maybe just organise a mystery instead, as organising a murder means that either you must contact someone else to do it or do it yourself, both of which are very illegal. 

Back to the fact that you are in love. Love! Alexander Arcady in love is something so awfully odd to makes me giggle as I write this. I had always thought you were in love with Daisy when you were incessantly kind, and quick to compliment and agree with all she said. If that was only a passing infatuation, I am almost excited to see how flustered and pink you are around George. I do look forward to seeing him again, it is always so very nice to see a face that is not pink and white. Amina does not count; she is practically worshipped for her pretty Egyptian colouring while George and I get _ that _ look for ours. Surely you know the look second-hand by now: the one where people turn up their noses and scrunch them up as if we smell bad, accompanied by the slightly wrinkled eyes or – in children – the astonished stare. People look at us as if we are person-shaped representations of Asia as a monolith and it is so refreshing to have people like you and Daisy, and Kitty and Beanie and Lavinia who don’t do that. You see us as people with different faces: that is all and that is lovely.

When Daisy and I turned in after our first day back at Deepdean (a Saturday), we were so simply exhausted that we collapsed into bed at six o’clock and slept through until two in the morning, when we both awoke. Daisy beckoned me into the roof. One of the shrimps has told her of a meteor shower and asked. they could watch it together. Daisy told her that she appreciated it but no and consoled said shrimp with some chocolates and even loaned her one of her more tame murder novels.

Daisy really has changed.

We watched it together instead, her and I. She held me against her, and we shared my mooncakes with oozing and sticky lotus paste that I do not share with anyone. It is unfair, how she must like girls but girls that are not me. Especially as, while we were up there, I decided that I should be content to spend the rest of my life with Daisy Wells and want nothing else in the world. 

I am sure my misery is putting you down and I promise that is not my intent. Write back soon, hopefully with some cheerier news, a mystery, and another essay about how handsome George is. I look forward to it.

Yours,  
Hazel Wong 

* * *

Sunday 13th September 1936, Weston School

Dear Hazel,

What you were saying about the unfairness of it all is just how I feel about George sometimes. It’s awfully unfair, isn’t it? I do wish it wasn’t condemned so harshly, then my life would be nothing short of heaven. Dear Hazel, I just want to give you a hug to stave off all that is terrible, even though I know you can do all that yourself.

Regarding more cheerful news: golly, it was as if somebody felt our boredom and sent us something to investigate! As I said in my last letter, I swapped out my new edition of Hardy Boys for somebody else’s slogging duties, which we all use to pry around the other dormitories. 

We discovered something while snooping that was supposed to be a secret. It caused quite a commotion among the Sixth Formers as they tried to silence each other and keep it from prying eyes of teachers, parents, and other students: two Sixth Form boys were discovered together. _ Together _ together. They weren’t caught in the act, I should say. Thank goodness, that would have been painfully awkward for the poor boys. They had been writing back and forth over the summer, talking of – I cannot believe I am even writing this – things they would like to do to each other. 

I am blushing furiously now, and George started cackling when I told him what I was blushing at. I told him to concentrate on his own letter. He’s decided to write up a far more detailed account of what we discovered and helped cover up, but my summary will have to do for now. I told him to shove off and go back to his own letter.

I am using it as an excuse to talk about George possibly being the same as them. You see, he was almost frantic trying to cover this up, despite the fact he wasn’t even involved. He said, over and over, “How could they be so careless with their letters? It’s ridiculous and I Should be rather cross they are so bad at hiding it. But I am not. Alex, wouldn’t you hate if this happened to you? Gosh, they are morons of the worst and most careless sort, but we must help them.”

Furthermore, George likes someone. Daisy, most likely. It will crush him to find out that she likes girls instead of boys. He’s forever on about his crush’s blue eyes and blonde hair (apparently fluffy, though she would never admit it), sporty by nature and intelligent though she sometimes doesn’t show it off like she should. It’s damning to my theory but rather hilarious to see him so flustered. Goodness knows how he’s talking with this girl; I have never seen him post any letters. Perhaps it is an incredibly well-kept secret. 

Now you've given me permission to talk about how offensively adorable he is, I shall take full advantage of that power by filling the rest of this letter with George-related information. 

For starters, my grandmother just got a rather skinny tabby cat called Doubtful. He has enormous ears, wide eyes, and is extremely lazy. Well, as it turns out, George is quite the cat person and it’s annoying and rather adorable, despite my dislike for that cat. George seems to have adopted the creature despite my constant protest. After a week, that highly disagreeable cat was sleeping at the foot of his bed. It was quite ridiculous, and I felt rather ignored, but it was very sweet to see him take to this tiny creature that is probably of demonic origin. 

I don’t only like him because he’s rather sweet and adorable (though I must admit that seeing him soft and kind plays a large part in my fancy). You should see him playing rugby. You like boys so you’re able to appreciate how men look playing sports. Especially as George is from a part of the world where affection between boys is much less weird. This is a rather long-winded way of winding around the fact that, when he wins, George tackles me into a ‘friendly hug’ that is more of a forceful thump while you are encircled by his arms. 

Aside from the fact that George is especially handsome while he plays sports, have you seen boys play sports in general? I suppose you haven’t, but you’ve seen girls play sports, which is the same principle of being able to stare. Handsome and beautiful are similar in that regard, I suppose. I digress, this is making me blush as I write.

George has finished his letter, so I’ll wrap this up before I’m forced to send the entire affair as a parcel, which will cost my saved money. I’ve been saving to spend it on those very expensive ices we can get when the Wells & Wong Detective Society and The Junior Pinkertons meet up.

Yours,

Alexander Arcady 

* * *

Sunday 13th September 1936, Weston School

To the Wells & Wong Detective Society (or rather, the president and her vice-president),

Hullo, detectives! I haven’t written to you before, but I am determined to make this letter longer than Alex’s, so have fun reading this bible of gossip from Weston.

We were getting dreadfully bored because the boys in our dorm have all exhausted their supply of gossip from their hols, and all the gossip I hear is from you girls. As Alex tells me (got curious about the veritable monolith of information he’s been writing every time), he and Hazel have been gossiping about girls and boys. I was rather offended at first because Alex never tells me anything until I realised that all they have been doing is exchanging information about the opposite sex because they’re both deprived romantics. Because you like romance so much (Daisy, feel free to yawn and skip over this), I’ll give you some information you can bat about. 

My crush has the most beautiful blue eyes, big and innocent to most although I and a few others see the real mischief on them. My crush has blond hair that’s fluffy (not that she’ll ever admit it) and often utterly wrecked by wind and rain. Quite the disaster, really, but I don’t mind. I’ll describe her personality in my next letter if you so desire, but that should be quite enough for you to be going on with.

Anyhow, our mystery!

It’s rather upsetting if you dig into it but a stroke of my genius on the surface. There are two boys in a Sixth Form form who are called Marvin and Micah. They’re both very reputable to the outside world and they’re both on the rugby team with me (yes, I play rugby. Alex often says he’s surprised I don’t have muscles from it. I’m still a string bean). They also have a rivalry that’s fantastic to watch happen. Once, when we were playing an opposing school, they lost a very promising game for us because they got into a fight on the field. An actual physical fight, it was smashing! I got a black eye in the mad scramble to tear them apart, not that it was as noticeable as the bruises on the skin of my classmates.

That dramatic affair was last term, before the summer break. After a week of no dramatic affairs, Alex and I got bored. Alex being Alex, he decided we were to spy on them via slogging duties. As I am rather like Daisy in that I like to know everything there is to know (perhaps that is why Alex’s crush is vexing me so much), I loved the idea.

Alex and I went up to the Sixth Formers rooms at lunch on Saturday. We heard quite a commotion on the way up: Marvin Taylor and Micah Wright were getting positively accosted by the captain of the rugby team (Thomas Balakrishnan). Thomas is rather fond of me as he is also Indian and rather protective of me after the awful sort of rude things I would hear when I was just a shrimp. I can tell the wrong sort for myself, but I do appreciate it. 

I approached them, none too shocked by the situation despite how unusual it is. Alex despises how unsurprised I am by everything I find it quite funny. He is such an expressive person that I am sure, if he was ever to fall in love, the entire school would know of his feelings in an instant.

“Thomas,” I said when I approached him. “What’s going on here, some discussion of the team?”

“Mukherjee,” he said, and dismissed me with a wave. “I can assure you this is no team discussion. Please, move along.”

“Golly,” I said, turning to Alex. He turns up his palms in a gesture of _ I don’t know either. _ As I expected, he looked astonished. “Whatever is the matter?”

My persistence was not welcomed. Thomas fixed a hand on my shoulder and physically pushed me away. “Oi!” Alex said, but I took a step back and turned on my heel. I did not want to get into a fight with one of my most favourite older students, nor did I want Alex to get into a fight. He may be stocky, but he cannot fight at all.

I turned to make sure Alex was following and he had literally vanished. Thomas shot me an apologetic look and a shrug. Alex appeared at my side so suddenly I made a noise quite like a shriek, although less girly and with much more annoyance.

“You won’t guess what I heard, gosh!” he said as we walked into the dorms, heaving our stuff necessary for slogging behind us. 

In a way Alex says is rather unkind, I said, “Oh, what now?”, and turned to face him with such a grand gesture I almost hit him with the broom I was carrying.

He scowled at me (you girls have never had the pleasure of seeing him scowl like that, he looks frightfully like an angry guinea pig), he said, “You’re quite annoying! No, I heard something interesting. Thomas said to Taylor and Wright, and I quote, ‘You two has better finish this at once and dispel this ludicrous nonsense. I can’t afford to lose two of my best players to this ridiculous rumour. Because that’s all it is as far as any of us are concerned, right?’. Taylor and Wright agreed and practically ran off!”

I was astonished. “Spiffing!” I exclaimed. Then I cringed. “Golly, I’m turning into you. Never allow that to happen to me, Alex. I can’t afford to lose all my brilliance.”

Alex rolled his eyes. He told me it’s because he’s accustomed to my nonsense but I don’t do nonsense so that is a lie.

When we got into the dorm, we divided and conquered, each taking half the room. Although we were there to snoop (with a new objective of finding out what on earth was going on with Micah and Marvin), we tidied a little too. I will never understand English people that way: you are all so very messy! Hazel, please attest to that. 

I found a copy of Pride and Prejudice under Jones’s bed, which we had a good laugh over at first. This is quite a random aside, but it will amuse you to know that I became curious and issue it from the library. Alex has been teasing me because, “From the way you’re carrying on, anybody would think that you’re the one bewitched by Darcy!”

Anyhow, Alex was on his stomach under Micah Wright’s bed when he bumped up against the underneath and it made on odd shuffling noise. He let me know and we both yelped and scrambled to find the source. I was the one who came up with the idea of looking behind the bed, which was promising. To his bed frame, hidden at the back, he has a pillowcase with several bundles of letters inside, ties with a red ribbon. 

I sent Alex off to make sure nobody was coming as I laid out the letters in order of the dates and read from the start. Once so realised who the letters were between — Micah Wright and Marvin Taylor — I was astonished. Not that I showed it because I am unsurprised by everything.

The two of them are together. Much like those girls in your school, although there is no one here running about with a book of secrets. I was fascinated by the content of the letters (I can hear you laughing all the way from here at Weston, girls) and I read and read, pages of the most fascinating and strange ideas the two of them had about you-know-what. One of the tamer things from the letters is them commenting on each other’s appearances. Although I prefer to note character as opposed to appearance, I will grudgingly admit that both are a certain degree of handsome. However, their appearances are nowhere near warranting all those comments. Alex, on the other hand, is a good reference for the stereotypically handsome boy. 

Alex came back into the room, saying, “_ What _ has you so interested?” (He gets much more American when he’s impatient with me.)

I handed him a letter and he went white upon reading it (well, whiter than he already is).

“Golly!” he said, his voice rather high and squeaky. “This… this is… I mean— _ gosh _.”

I gathered all the letters, sorted them into Micah’s strange and muddled order, bound them up again and stood up. “Well, we have a duty now.”

Alex, as he’s terribly slow sometimes, said, “Do we?”

“We need to help them hide this,” I said.

Alex insists that I add that I ‘said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, despite how insane the very notion was’. Daisy, you know the feeling when somebody refuses to be as fast as your mind. Just because it isn’t obvious to you does not mean that it isn’t to me. 

“How do we do that?”

With a dramatic sigh, I said, “Like this.”

I took off out of the dorm and almost hurtled straight into Micah Wright. “Oh!” I said, stepping back. “I’m sorry. I have a question for you.”

He gestured for me to walk with him to his form and I did. “Go ahead.”

“Alex — you know, Alexander Arcady — and I were slogging your forms and we found a collection of letters.”

Alex, who was packing up all the slogging things at the door of the room, said, “Put it lightly, why don’t you?” Turning to the terrified Wright, he talked. “We would like to help you hide this, as you must be having troubles, judging by that altercation with Balakrishnan earlier. Even if you refuse our help—” He holds out his hand. “—I am on your side.”

Alex’s emotional capabilities do impress me but don’t go telling him I said that. 

“For it’s worth,” I say, sticking out a hand, “So am I.”

Micah shook my hand, then Alex’s, and then frowned. “You were snooping,” he said. “Actively looking for something!”

Alex, who had been looking rather brave, no longer looked brave at all. If we were you girls, we would have been clutching at each other’s hands for comfort. However, we are not so we stood five feet apart. 

“At first,” Alex said, managing to siphon some of the courage that I always have, “we were slogging at first, genuinely. We’re friends of those girl detectives who have been in every newspaper under the sun. As detectives— as people who like to detect, we were curious when we heard letters crinkling and decided to investigate. When we realised what we had stumbled across—”

“—We knew we must help you,” I finished. 

Alexander gave me an odd sort of smile. I know that smile very well from how we met, and how brave he was then. 

After a few agonising moments, Micah nodded and said, “Very well. I forgive you and accept your help.”

“Spiffing!” Alex said, grinning. “What can we do?”

“Rumours — true ones — are spreading all over,” he said. “Can you stop them somehow?”

As I always do, I had an idea. “Yes, we can!” I said, and turned to race off down the stairs, leaving Alex to lug all the slogging stuff. “Alex, come on!”

We spent the next few hours socialising with other students in all years, even ignoring dorm pride and talking to other Fifth Formers. Every time somebody mentioned Micah and Marvin, it was our duty to leap in with a ridiculous rumour that we ‘heard from some older students’. It ended up as a sort of competition: who can invent the most ludicrous rumour? When Alex said to a load of shrimps, with a totally straight face, that he had heard another shrimp day that Micah was a vampire sucking Marvin’s blood, I decided nothing could beat that. 

Once we told seventeen different shrimp seventeen different things, and seventeen rumours of varying ridiculousness were wild around the school. 

I do feel bad for the two boys, having to hide their relationship behind an old rivalry. At least it is working well.

This morning, Micah accosted me at breakfast while Alex was in the toilets. He told me, almost glowing, that he is so happy — which I told Alex — and something else which I did not tell him. I’m afraid that Alex would be made rather uncomfortable by what he said but you girls may find it funny. I quote him here: ‘You know— and I am only asking in case Marv and I can return the favour at any point— how long, if at all, you and Arcady are…?’

How strange! I wonder what they saw in Alex and I that made them think we could _ ever _ be lovers.

I may tell Alex because it’s quite funny to me. 

I dismissed Micah with a polite explanation that, no, we are just accepting people. Then I turned around and jumped in on a conversation two Second Formers were having about Marvin and Micah and amended their rumour to a slightly more realistic one: some rumours must be believable if we want the older years to circulate them to. 

It has been a pleasure to write to you, detectives.

Yours,  
George Mukherjee (Co-Chair of the Junior Pinkertons)

P.S.: I know I make it out to seem that I hate Alex and find him annoying that that isn’t true in the slightest. I do like Alex an awful lot, even I am rather dismissive sometimes, and I hope he knows that. 


	3. Part One - The Letters We Wrote (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the way Inspector Priestly is carrying on, you would think that George and Alexander committed the murder themselves. Considering that I don't have much to write up yet, I have enclosed the rather telling letters that prefaced the Weston and Deepdean Social.

Tuesday 15th September 1936, Deepdean School

To Alexander and George,

Your case is rather interesting, though not nearly as interesting as the ones we have solved. I appreciate your idea of spreading rumours, rather clever. Almost as clever as me. 

I did indeed yawn and skip over the romance but it rather excited Hazel, being the romantic that she is. Your crush sounds rather nice in my opinion. It is a pity she is not often expressing her cleverness. 

Hazel often exclaims over English untidiness and I think it ridiculous, though I do understand. She has become even more tidy since we returned from Hong Kong. Everything in our dorm is so neat!

I agree with what you think, George: it’s ridiculous how careless they were about it. You would expect to get found out if you were as obvious as them. If someone ever falls into a situation like that, there is a foolproof way to make sure they’re not found out:

  * establish that they are good friends with the person they're dating (this way, nobody questions why they spend holidays together, write to each other, and spend a lot of time in each other’s company). 
  * establish themselves as interested in a girl that none of their friends will even meet and write to said girl. 
  * and for goodness sake, they must make sure everybody is out before they canoodle, as Hazel would have said as a shrimp. 

Hazel just looked over, asked what I was writing, and said, in a way so arch and yet unamused it could have been me saying it, “Daisy’s guide to homosexuality.” She gets a small and rather sweet Hong Kong accent when she says that. Do not tell her I said that, it would not do for her to know I like to compliment her in letters to the Junior Pinkertons. 

I could say more of this case, but I will simply say that I am an odd sort of proud that you two are accepting of homosexuals; it’s good you were not disgusted and even went as far as to help them hide it. I will even go as far as to commend you for it. 

God, writing letters is tiresome, I understand Hazel’s complaints about excessive case notes now. 

I am naturally glossing over what my dear Hazel is so entranced by: The Weston and Deepdean Social, which Hazel just wrote in capital letters in her letter to Alexander. She can be dreadfully silly sometimes. 

I do rather approve of the schedule, I’ll admit.

Saturday: Deepdean students prepare, Weston arrives in the evening and we dine together.

Sunday: Chapel, each school performs their play, and the Deepdean dancers perform. 

Monday: A day entirely of each school’s respective sporting tournaments and an exeat evening where we can leave to dine with our parents.

Tuesday-Thursday: Educating each other in the ways of our respective schools and having different but still apparently educational lessons. 

Friday: The garden party, an exeat day, and the dance.

There absolutely must be a murder! It will be such a shame if we can not detect another mystery. It can’t be a Deepdean mystery or the school will shut down. Can you organise a nice murder for us?

I may try and convince Hazel to wear one of her lovely Hong Kong silk dresses to the dance. She looks wonderful in them and I think she ought to be prouder of her heritage, even if that does only start with her clothing. It’s a shame that she pushes away such a large part of herself to fit in. George, do you wear Indian clothes for formal events?

I look forward to seeing you, against my better judgement.

Yours,  
The Honourable Daisy Wells

P.S.: For your eyes only, Mukherjee. Did you mean ‘blond’? That suggests you’re talking about a man. Let me know if you meant to talk about a man by writing it like that again.

* * *

Tuesday 15th September 1936, Deepdean School

To Alexander,

I don’t know if you read George’s letter to us before you posted it, but I think he had a good chance of feeling the same way you do, or at least a chance of being homosexual. He’s defending and _ helping _Marvin and Micah, which I cannot picture somebody normal doing. Can you? If that rugby captain Thomas Balakrishnan is anything to go by, not every student would have helped them. 

Also, even though he can be dreadfully rude (he is so Daisy-ish), did you read what he wrote at the end? Gosh, I am invested in all this business now. He said that he likes you very much, especially your emotional responses. Another thing he mentioned was how you met, and how selfless you were then. One more quote (this time, direct) before I move on: “One of the tamer things from the letters is them commenting on each other’s appearances. Although I prefer to note character as opposed to appearance, I will grudgingly admit that both are a certain degree of handsome. However, their appearances are nowhere near warranting all those comments. Alex, on the other hand, is a good reference for the stereotypically handsome boy.”

Handsome, Alexander! Perhaps he does like you!

We had the most wicked feast last night. We have quite the spread that’s gathered from all our holidays. I even shared the mooncakes my father sent me but only with Daisy, and she shared with me her bottle of Coca Cola. Have you had it before? Daisy and I can agree on one thing and that is Coca Cola is best drunk in secret and right from a bottle you’re sharing with your best friend. We got the other dorm back for the alarm prank on the Anniversary Weekend, rather meanly. It was Daisy’s idea, of course. We planted alarm clocks everywhere in their room and set them to go off at four in the morning. Clementine was furious but Amina found it hilarious. Daisy was oh-so proud of herself like you wouldn’t believe. It made her look quite pink and pretty. Do tell George that, if he reacts then he must like her. 

Did you hear? I know Daisy mentioned it and all its technicalities, but I am simply so excited I can’t think of technicalities.

THE WESTON AND DEEPDEAN SOCIAL.

I have never been more excited for a school event ever. I am perhaps not looking forward to the ball; I will see Daisy looking beautiful, but I won’t be able to dance with her. However, we can see each other, Alexander! I am so excited. 

The girls in my dorm are awful about it, mostly Kitty. She has a boyfriend — his name is Hugo; do you know him? — and she often looks at the little photo I have pinned up to say that she would be with him if she wasn’t so loyal. I’m rather fed up with all the teasing, but it is better for everybody to think we’re dating than what is true, and I suppose you think the same.

It’s an awfully annoying shame that our parents will be there and hovering over all of us. Well, everybody else’s parents will be. Daisy’s parents won’t be there, mine are in Hong Kong, your family is all in the United States, and goodness knows where George’s will be. Perhaps we ought to have the inspector come again! It was good fun last time, despite the murder. I do hope nobody dies this time. Deer Deepdean can’t take yet another murder. I dread the idea, it’s an awful business even though Daisy loves it.

Daisy has been, in her Daisy-ish way, hiding compliments inside insults to try and get me to wear my silk dress from Hong Kong to the dance. I’ve been pretending that I’m not yet convinced even though I am, and I think she knows that. She just likes having something to do and if that something is pestering me then so be it.

Yours,  
(a very excited) Hazel Wong

* * *

Thursday 17th September 1936, Weston School

Dear Daisy and Hazel,

I suppose this is rather only to Daisy, but I know Hazel has a hand in what is written.

Thank you, the rumours were all my idea. Alex did come up with some rather good ones, though. For example: vampires.

My crush can be clever when she wants to be, but her mind is just as unordered as her blond hair. I’m glad Hazel found some interest in my romantic life. Hello, Hazel, by the way! How is your baby brother? I do look forward to the social so I may see another face that is not pink and white. Thomas doesn’t count, as he doesn’t pay attention to his heritage at all: he goes to chapel and eats meat. And I _ know _, English people are fearfully untidy.

Alex enjoyed me reading out your ‘Daisy’s guide to homosexuality’; he said that he shall keep it in mind for ‘future reference’. What he means by that, I have no idea.

Thank you for the approval (though I can do perfectly well without it). In my opinion, it doesn’t do to discriminate against any sort of person. “People like that have a hard time of it anyway so we may as well help ease the burden,” Alex says, and I agree. Don’t tell him that I do. 

Indeed, writing this much is a dreadful bore. I have far better things to do with my time. I do feel bad for Alex and Hazel with all the writing they do.

All this gossip about the social is tiresome. I could not care less but all the boys are so excited it keeps them awake. Alexander is elated by all this chatter — his American chatty nature is insufferable —and is so excited to see both of you. It’s rather sweet, really. 

I also approve of the schedule; it seems good for the average person. Daisy, we are going to die of boredom with our intellects but at least everybody else will be entertained.

Daisy, yes, I do have Indian clothing to wear and I appreciate your bluntness. Alex is awkward about India and asking me things even though I love to talk about it. He was especially awkward when I was showing off one of my Indian suits over the summer; his American chatter vanished, though I appreciate that he is worried about offending me. 

Hazel, you should absolutely wear your Hong Kong clothing. I know you are not proud of where you come from and I think that it’s ridiculous. I am proudly Hindu and will take beatings for my religion, and I believe that you should feel the same way about your nationality. If you don’t want to go all out, at least wear the jade pink you told us about. You should be proud, Hazel, even if it hurts. It is a fantastic thing to do. 

I look forward to seeing you as well.

Yours,  
George Mukherjee

P.S.: Daisy, for your eyes only. If all this about my crush gets out to anybody, you know what that will do to me.

* * *

Thursday 17th September 1936, Weston School

Dear Hazel,

I shall answer your letter in chronological order even though I want nothing more than to scream about the social.

I didn’t read his letter before I sealed it, no. I can’t _ believe _ he said all that about me! He’s looking at me rather weirdly now: I looked up at him and he already looking at me, and I was so shocked that I dropped my pen and yelled, “Hellfire!” He called me an idiot and handed it back to me.

He mentioned how we met? I’ll tell you that story some time, if you want. 

I am incredibly shocked that he said that! He is as emotional as a brick wall. Now that I think of it, I’m sure that walls are more emotional than him. If you insulted the colour of a wall for long enough, it would cry. When people insult _ his _ colour, he declares himself the Prince of Bengal. 

I digress, I think I’ve gone rather loopy on sugar. George has quite the selection of sweets holidays and he hates a lot of them, so he’s been offering them around the dorm.

He did not call me handsome! No way! Then again, he always says that I’m a ‘stereotypically handsome English boy’ and manages to make it sound like an insult. There is no way he could ever mean that as a compliment, trust me on that. He calls me an idiot quite enough for me to be sure of that.

That feast and prank sounds wicked! I wish I had been there to see all that happen.

Now that is out of the way: THE SOCIAL! I am so excited to see you and meet the rest of the society.

Goodness, everyone thinks I fancy you as well! It’s not so bad: I can pull it off well. Whenever someone asks about you, George gives me a funny look that makes me blush. It’s better if everybody believes this, I think. It’s far less suspicious.

Yes, I do know Hugo. George thinks he’s decent, but I think he’s an insufferable prick. Don’t tell Kitty I said that.

I’m so pleased we won’t have parents there! It’ll be so much more fun without them. George’s folks won’t be there (they’re holidaying in India), Bertie and Harold are making their way to Spain, my people are in the USA, yours are in Hong Kong, and we all know about Daisy’s. Oh, I _ do _ hope there’s a murder, which goes against everything I usually say but I’m simply so bored! Nothing has happened since the very start of summer!

You should absolutely wear your Hong Kong clothes! You’ll look very pretty, and you should be as proud as George is (maybe not as proud, half the shrimps here think that he’s the Prince of Bengal).

Yours,  
(a very excited) Alexander Arcady

* * *

Saturday 19th September 1936, Deepdean School

Dear Alexander,

If I didn’t know Daisy, I would swear she is already in love with me. A new and bizarre trend has started where shrimps try to win our favour by offering their older brother’s hands to us. It hasn’t happened to me so much but Daisy is getting showered with second-hand proposals. 

I swear, it is the oddest thing. Anyway, Daisy is turning them all down in a rather blunt way and half the time her reasoning is, “I already have my dear Hazel Wong.” It makes me feel funny inside when she says it, a warm sore of feeling high in my chest that tickles and makes everything hum and brighten a little. I don’t know if her eyes have always been that blue, perhaps I’ve only just noticed.

She’s been rather odd recently, complimenting me without the little thing English people tack onto the end that makes it unkind. Perhaps I have conditioned her out of English unkindness. Sometimes she does add on the English people ending but it seems affectionate.

“You look quite pretty today Hazel. Not as lovely as me, but still alright.”

“If you did ever get married, I should forgive you and live in your spare room. I could hardly live without you.”

“Your history is getting better. Not as good as me but still, you’re okay.”

She’s becoming quite softer and it’s odd, I think The Rue changed her. It’s not possible that she likes me, she’s still utterly out over Martia.

Is Hugo that bad? Gosh, I can’t wait to meet him now. 

Spain? Goodness, make them send a postcard! And no, there cannot be a murder! There has been enough murder and mystery! I am quite content with just seeing you boys and telling you about our holiday and the murder at the anniversary weekend.

He pulls that Prince of Bengal stunt often? Gosh, I do like him and how proud he is. 

Thank George for his little speech about pride for me, I truly loved it. I shall wear my Hong Kong clothes to the ball if I can summon the courage and I dare say I will look alright doing so. 

Yours,  
(a very excited) Hazel Wong

* * *

Saturday 19th September 1936, Deepdean School

Dear George,

Did we ever tell you two about The Case of the Deepdean Vampire? It’s one of our smaller mysteries, I’ll give you the casebook to read at the social if you like. 

Hazel said that your crush sounds like me, which I suppose is true. I do pretend to be moronic in school because nobody except the detective society can know of my brilliance.

Hazel says that she looks forward to seeing you also, and that Teddy is good last she heard. She didn’t say to Alexander but she’s currently suffering from a cold and is asleep in a bed in the San. Invalids are tiresome, all she has done for two days is sleep. 

I agree with you, discrimination does no one any good. 

Yours,  
The Honourable Daisy Wells

P.S.: Of course, I won’t tell a soul. You’re just like me, you know.

* * *

_ Despite the fact that the beginning of this casebook is entirely letters, I thought this was an important thing to include. Enclosed below is an account from Alexander on the events of Sunday 20th September 1936 in Weston School. _

Writing letters to the girls at Deepdean has always been a process. However long our letter in secret ink is, we have to write that much absolute nonsense in actual ink on the other side. George was writing his reply to Daisy and Hazel and had run out of nonsense to write to his ‘cousin’, and so began to talk about his crush. Our pseudo-identities for the readable side of letters are each other’s cousins, myself as Hazel’s and George as Daisy’s. This obviously wouldn’t line up if you put us beside each other but it works well enough through letters. 

I peered over at what George was writing and said, “Look here, George. You’ve spelt blonde wrong where you describe that girl you’re so mad for. It has an ‘e’ on the end when you’re describing a girl. ‘Frightfully messy blonde hair’ is the sentence you mean.”

“No, Alex, I really don’t,” he said, turning and glaring up at me with some irritation.

I frowned. George is frightfully good at English, you see. It’s odd that he would deny that. “George, it’s how the English language works!“

“No, Alex!” he said, frustrated and setting down his pen. “I don’t mean that! Just be quiet and let me write!”

Several more times, we went back and forth, over and over, until George snapped, “I mean to be talking about a boy, Alexander! How dense can one person be?! Half the time I want to punch you in the face for your stupidity and this is one of those times!”

“Oh.” The realisation swept over me. George was… a fairy? The word didn’t sit right with me. He is not fae and girlish in the least. I picked another word. Homosexual? It couldn’t be true! And now it was even crueller that I liked him and he did not like me. “Oh. George, you’re…”

He stood from his chair. “Alex, I am quite prepared to do the most awful things I could ever do to keep you quiet about this. I’ll get arrested, you understand? I swear to the Hindu gods that I’ll—”

“For the love of God, shut up,” I said.

“What?” I never tell him to shut up, so naturally, he was astonished.

“George I— I don’t care!” I burst out, making wild gestures. “Do whatever you want to and be with whoever you want to, just be careful. It wouldn't do at all to have the Junior Pinkertons split apart from each other, would it?”

George didn’t hug me, he never does, but he looked up at me with his head tilted towards the ground and gave me an odd sort of smile that tugged at one corner of his mouth and lit up his dark eyes. “Thank you, Alex.”

It was as genuine as I had ever heard him.

“Of course,” I said, and I beamed right back at him. “What time is it?”

“Is food the only thing that’s ever on your mind?” he asked, incredulous.

“Perhaps.”

As the cry for dinner went up in the dorm next door, I grinned. “I have a sixth sense.”

“You are unbelievable,” he said, falling into step beside me. “Utterly ridiculous.”

I suddenly understood George’s wide eyes and how he fiddled with his cuffs in Second Year when Bob Featherstonehaugh spoke to him, and I smiled. “Proudly.”

* * *

Monday 21st September 1936, Weston School

Dear Hazel,

I don’t have much time to write, the mail was late today because they wanted to inspect it for communication with Germans. I’m doing this in Prep and the prefect taking us for it is very unkind.

I’m so sorry to hear you’re sick, I hope Daisy brings you lots of cakes back from bunbreak. Get well soon! I hope you don’t try and be as bright and awake as Daisy was when she was ill in London, I’m sure she only made herself worse.

Marvin and Micah were nearly caught snogging in a broom cupboard, and I say nearly because _ George _caught them. I couldn’t guess that at first when he first told me (George wouldn’t say it outright) and made an ass out of myself, and I was subject to joking teasing for a solid three hours until I fell down the stairs. Then he teased me for that. 

I found out something important and I’m trying to avoid actually saying it.

George is homosexual. He told me outright and I can’t really explain outright as I don’t quite know myself how the conversation got from A to B. The point is that he is and it’s dreadfully irritating because he likes men but not me. I didn’t tell him about myself (if someone heard, we could pretend we were pretending and acting it out but if both of us came out with our secrets we would have no change) but I expressed that I’d never stop being his friend over something so silly.

Yours,  
(a rushed and very excited) Alexander Arcady

* * *

Monday 21st September 1936, Weston School

Dear Daisy,

This is incredibly rushed so my handwriting may be less impeccable than normal: I’m writing this in Prep because all the Weston letters were seized before they arrived on suspicion of German-English communication within the school, and they arrived late. We want to be able to get our letters into the end of the morning post. 

No, you didn’t. Against my better judgement, I’m interested in this case. Give us the casebook to read at the social.

Aren’t they? Alex is awful when he gets ill, he whines and whines until I want to suffocate him with the San’s cushions. 

Yours,  
George Mukherjee

P.S.: Naturally, I did guess. It’s quite obvious to a genius. I’m curious, any experience?

* * *

Wednesday 23rd September 1936, Deepdean School

Dear Alexander,

I never said this before but I would like to hear how you two met, if you can tell that story. 

Thank you for your concern! I’m finally recovering after days of feeling utterly miserable and washed out. I ate something or other that made me even more ill, and Nurse Min gave me ipecac so I would sick it up.

Daisy came into the San when I was vomiting and I was such a mess I shouted at her to go away: I was pink and pale all over, sweat-slicked and shivering with my hair coming out of its plait.

She didn’t go, even though she despises when people are poorly. Instead, she hopped up on the bed beside me and started telling me about some dreadful rumours she heard about one of our mistresses — they did sound quite believable once she dug into the backstory. It was so lovely, Alexander.

“Oh, Hazel, do stop,” she kept saying, all while clutching at my shaking hand, and she rattled on about rumours and murders in the papers she had stolen from the desk of our science mistress. She talked for such a long time that, when I had stopped being ill, I fell asleep and woke up and she was still talking as if nothing had happened.

When she finished talking about how our teacher was possibly having an affair with a teacher from Weston (one of her many theories), she realised I was not ill anymore and demanded to Nurse Minn that I be allowed to wash. I was very pleased to be able to do so and she even managed to bribe me being allowed to wear my Hong Kong pyjamas.

Alexander, can you tell I am absolutely smitten?

When I stumbled back to bed in the San — I was still ill but no longer vomiting from ipecac she gave me — Daisy was waiting with a hairbrush and insisted upon brushing my hair for me so I felt better, while I write this letter. She’s still brushing it.

I swear, the girl you like brushing your hair is the loveliest feeling in all the world.

George is homosexual? Alexander, this is fantastic news, even if he is not interested in you. He now has the potential to like you! It is good that you voiced your support, you’re a brick.

Yours,  
(a torturously ill and very excited) Hazel Wong

* * *

Wednesday 23rd September 1936, Deepdean School

Dear George,

I can’t write for long, Hazel’s been dreadfully sick and she’s just gone to wash herself. I’m planning to brush her hair when she gets back so she feels better.

Yours,  
The Honourable Daisy Wells

P.S.: No experience as of yet but I’m hoping that will change soon; there are far more girls that are homosexual or willing to experiment in Deepdean than people realise. What about you, is Weston the same?

* * *

Friday 25th September 1936, Weston School

Dear Hazel,

I was upset to hear from Daisy that you’re sick. I'm glad you’re feeling better, it must have been awful to be stuck in a sickbed for so long! At least you had Daisy to take care of you. I know Daisy, obviously not as well as you do but enough, and I know that she’s wishing like anything that somebody would get murdered so the two of you could investigate.

Every day of term, my predicament gets more unbearable. That is, the predicament of who I’m in love with. Hazel, I can’t stand it! Being in the same room as him is torturous. At least I can blame my blush on sudden thoughts of you.

Since you asked, I’ll tell you the story of when George and I met. It’s strange, the two of us are barely different from when we were in First Year: my sleeves are still too short and George still points it out, George is still painfully sarcastic and I still have to suffer through it. There are almost no noticeable changes except for the fact that George hadn’t discovered hair product when we were eleven. 

Our first day of school was a Monday and we had chapel on Sunday. I made an ass out of myself for the entire first few days with mispronouncing names of English people and places (Worcestershire? Seriously?). After all that, everybody was in love with my accent except for a certain person.

Can you guess?

While the other three boys clamoured for stories about my family (they assumed that I was interesting because I’m American), George sat on his bed to read and graced me with raised eyebrows if I looked at him. 

I made an ass out of myself saying his surname too, by the way.

I noticed that George wasn’t in our assemblies when we prayed. I seemed to always notice him back then. I notice him even now, but I more notice close things, like how he picks nonexistent bits off his blazer instead of nervous pacing (Daisy does it too, I think it’s a genius thing) and how he purses his lips when something is curious but he doesn’t want to voice it.

On Sunday, we had proper chapel for the first time and after, I had to go to the headmaster to talk to him and confirm that, despite being American, I knew the required amount about English history. Side note, you have so much history! In America, it only started in 1776 and the last Founding Father died just over 100 years ago. Your history goes all the way back to 1066!

I knocked on the slightly open door and then peered into the room, and I almost fell back.

You see, my American school didn’t much do beatings. They made us do odd and unpleasant things instead. I had certainly never seen anybody get beaten.

I watched for almost a minute until George was permitted to leave, and he saw me at the door. He raised an eyebrow, looking entirely unsurprised (it's a habit of his, and it’s very annoying). He mouthed, ‘Arcady’ and turned back to face Headmaster Twining.

“Pardon, sir?”

“If I don’t see you at chapel next Sunday, I shall beat you black and blue in front of the entire school,” he warned, a hand raised in the air.

“I would rather be beaten back and blue in front of the entire country than set foot into a hall of worship as ridiculous as yours,” he said with his arms folded over his chest, and I watched with my eyes screwed half shut as he was clouted about the head again.

“God bless you,” Headmaster Twining said sarcastically as he waved George from the room. 

“_ Namaskar _,” he said in reply (he tells me now that it is as close as they have to a ‘God bless you’) and he left with his head held high. 

I stepped in and, for five minutes, discussed history with a headmaster I had just seen beat a student I found fascinating.

When I left, George was waiting for me. “Aren’t you nosy, Arcady?”

I blushed. “My name is Alexander, you know.”

“Alex it is,” he said, deciding that my full name was rather too dull for him to bother with. “Why are you upset?”

“That’s wrong of them!” I managed, blurting it in a rush.

“So it is,” he replied, “But there’s no point sobbing about it.”

“You should do something!”

He turned up his nose, looking very much like that Bengali prince he claimed to be to get that policeman off our backs. “Why should I? What could I do, Alex? Go to chapel? I don’t think so.”

“Why don’t you go?”

“I’m Hindu,” he said as if it were ordinary. I started. I hadn’t heard of many other religions spoken of in tones that weren’t calling people from George’s side of the world awful words. I had heard of Christians, Jews, and Mormons (most English people have absolutely no idea what a Mormon is and you should be glad; they're annoying) and almost nothing else. 

“Right.” I nodded. “You know what you should do?”

Humouring me, he said, “What?”

“Detect.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Headmaster Twining can’t figure out how all the older years are getting their exam papers early,” I said. “I heard the Fourth Formers go on about it. If you solved that case, it may get him on your side.”

And that, Hazel, is how I met George Mukherjee. Approximately six hours later, we began The Junior Pinkertons and the rest, as they say, is history.

I look forward to seeing you at the social, which should be today by the time you receive this!

Yours,  
(a stupendously excited) Alexander Arcady

* * *

Friday 25th September 1936, Weston School

Dear Daisy,

There is almost nothing I can reply to your letter without blushing furiously, which is utterly not who I am.

No, there are no boys like that here, aside from Marvin and Micah. Most of them hide it well if they do exist and no one who is normal wants to ‘experiment’. Being a homosexual girl is different, and you’re lucky. It’s more normalised for you.

We can speak more on this at the social, let’s bitch about the law, society and propriety together. We can get the others to join in too: Alex knows about my secret now (he was kinder than I ever could have hoped, it was the best I have felt in months), and Hazel is no doubt dear and accepting of you, if not in the know about my secret from Alex. I said he could tell her as she is so accepting of my brother and yours and what they do behind closed doors.

The social will either be paradise or hell for us and, as you receive this on the morning of the social, you can tell me which one you think will happen.

Here’s to a nicely-arranged murder for the four of us.

Yours,  
George Mukherjee

* * *

“Ooh!” Kitty said when she saw me reading Alexander’s letter. “Let me see that!”

Before I could realise what she intended to do, she had done it: Kitty snatched up Alexander’s letter and danced with it out of my reach. “Now, let’s see! ‘Dear Hazel’! Well I never, isn’t that lovely! ‘I was upset to hear from Daisy that you’re sick. I'm glad you’re feeling better, it must have been awful to be stuck in a sickbed for so long! At least you had Daisy to take care of you. I know Daisy, obviously not as well as you do but enough, and I know that she’s wishing like anything that somebody would get murdered so the two of you could investigate.’” Kitty frowned. “Why, this is less romantic than I envisioned!”

This time, I leapt up and tried to snatch it from her, almost knocking both of us to the ground. “Here, Hazel! Don’t overreact! I write to my boyfriend, I know what this is going to say. ‘Every day of term, my predicament gets more unbearable. That is, the predicament of who I’m in love with. Hazel, I can’t stand it! Being in the same room as him’—” With a sharp gasp, Kitty stopped reading aloud. Her eyes dropped down the lines, reading of George’s eyes, how pretty his best friend is, and how excited both of them are for the visit.

“Well,” Kitty said stiffly. “I suppose you aren’t to marry him, then?”

“No,” I said, snatching the letter from her now pliant hands. “Well, I could. He likes both, you see. I’m sure this crush of his is a passing infatuation.”

She beamed. “Oh, even if it is— the Weston students arrive in a couple of hours, I have to tell everyone!”

“NO!” I yelled, louder than I have ever yelled in school before. I tried to mimic a spooky and threatening smile that was a mix of every murderer I had encountered, Mrs Crompton, Martia when she was fierce, Uncle Felix, George, and Daisy.

It clearly worked as, when I shot her this Frankenstein amalgamation of an expression and said, “Medieval tortures, Kitty,” in a honeyed voice, she gulped.

“Very well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment about what you thought of my writing! I thrive off feedback: let me know what you liked or what you'd like to see (or just scream)!


	4. Part Two - Good Evening, Telegrams and Weeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before the inspector arrived, Alexander had to contact him. What happened to trigger this? The answer is a rather alarming telegram he recieved on the first day of the social Here are the details of the first evening of the social.

Daisy and I did the Detective Society handshake at top speed before walking in line with the others to the into the hall. The Fourth Formers in front of us giggled and gasped when they saw the Weston boys milling about, chatting with each other and pretending that they were not peering at the girls.

As my eyes raked over every student, I heard a rather strange noise from a Fourth Former — Alma Lollingwood — who was clutching into Ella Turnball and pointing into the crowd.

“Look!” she whispered in what seemed like a mixture of disgust and shock. As girls split off to — quietly and properly — talk to the boys, I knew what she was about to say, “That boy is a _ Paki _!”

“He’s Indian, not Pakistani,” Daisy piped up, and began to pick at her nails and pretend she had never said it. 

I watched as more and more eyes fixed on George Mukherjee, who was standing alone and admiring the notable alumni plaques mounted on the wall. That is, until a blond boy in Weston uniform came up behind him, covering his eyes and saying what was most likely, “Guess who?”

George did not look even vaguely amused as he turned around and, with Alexander, did the most complex set of hand motions I have ever seen. Daisy squeezed my arm and smiled with a slightly raised eyebrow, and I knew in that moment that — despite her protests — she was pleased to see them.

“Gosh, George _ is _ handsome,” I whispered, playing attention to his features for the first time as opposed to the familiar colour of them. “It’s no small wonder that—”

“Hush,” Daisy said, treading on my foot. “Whatever it is, no need to announce it to the whole school, is there?” With bright eyes and a flushed face, she added, “I don’t see it, you know. I’ll pretend I do but the only people worth admiring are girls. Especially you, you’re looking rather nice today. Did you put on contraband perfume? You really are dressing up for Alexander!”

I was about to reply, sure I was blushing, when a voice I know well called out, “Hazel! I say, Hazel!”

“Alexander!” I said, delighted. I let go of Daisy to bolt across the room in a most unladylike fashion, and heard her racing after me. Alexander moved forward too, and the two of us met in a fierce hug.

A feeling swelled in my gut, an odd one, and I thought for the first time how pleased I was to not like him like that any longer. The feeling is more of a heavy ache of how much I care for him, much like how I feel for Daisy although not as strong. The blush that I take onto my cheeks when he’s around and when he’s mentioned is more of a habit I have to grow out of, and I like it that way.

“Hazel!” he says again, releasing me and holding me by the shoulders so he could look me up and down. “Gosh, you look lovely! This is the pin you told me about! You haven’t changed a bit since the Rue, though. I’m starting to think you will never grow again.”

“I know,” Daisy says, an impish and mischievous smile on her face as she linked with my arm once more. “It wouldn’t do for Hazel to get too tall, though. She would be terribly hard to boss about.”

George — who had been quiet until that moment, spoke up in his silky smooth voice. “I am starting to think that I will never stop growing. Alex says I shall become the tallest person in the world.”

“I do not!” Alexander objected, turning to George with an indignant look (George is right, Alexander goes rather more American when irritated or indignant). “I used to say that. We are fifteen now, I haven’t said it in ages!”

The two of them looked at each other for a moment, and George looked so smitten I was astonished Alexander was yet to notice.

“Boys!” Daisy sighed, a whisper beside my ear.

George turned his eyes to Daisy. “And you,” he said. “Golly, it’s wonderful to see you.”

I could _ tell _ that he wanted to hug her, as the two of them have become so close since Cambridge, but he knew that she is not the hugging sort. After an awkward moment, she sighed and said, “Oh, bother you,” and squashed him in a hug.

George looked shocked but hugged her back, and I could see him relax. He clearly really likes Daisy. They have a strange relationship where they would never admit it but would kill for each other.

After he released Daisy, who stepped back and pretended the last few seconds had not happened, he caught me by the shoulder and said, “Alex told you, didn’t he?”

I nodded, and I felt sick. He smiled. “Well. Thank you. I’m glad you’re void of objections.”

In my mind, I tried rather quickly to work out who knew what. As far as I was aware, Daisy knew that I like girls and boys (but thought I liked Alexander), obviously knew of her own interest in girls, somehow knew about George (I think he told her), and believed that there was _something_ between George and Alexander. Alexander knew that Daisy is homosexual, that I like Daisy, that he likes girls and boys (and George), and that George is homosexual. George knew that Daisy is homosexual, and that he is too, which made him the most in the dark of our group.

It all confused me further.

George, forgetting his propriety, pulled me into a loose and comfortable hug and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Daisy do the same to Alexander.

“Now,” Daisy said, all business. “Now silly emotions are out of the way, point us in the direction of these boys you were investigating.”

Alexander went to point but George grabbed his wrist before he could. “Alex, be polite!” he scolded, turning to us. “See that tall and lean boy with the curly dark hair, beside Balakrishnan? That’s Micah Wright. The blond beside him is Marvin Taylor.”

“Any developments with the case?” Daisy asked. “Ah hah, just look at his demeanour. They’ve clearly had some sort of discussion before coming here.”

George nodded approvingly. “Most likely. Anyhow, no developments rather than an awkward rugby practise the day after we spread the rumours. Balakrishnan is going to suspect that it’s more than a rumour soon.”

Alexander and Daisy shared a very white-people look that spoke of what they knew those boys could do if caught. “They wouldn’t have too much trouble,” Daisy said airily, clearly thinking of Bertie and Harold. “They would be expelled but a bit of money could get it off their records.”

Pinching his nose, George said, “Well, no. Theoretically yes but that would not work at Weston.”

Alexander took up the narrative. “After you-know-who—” George shuddered. “—reported an incident of sodomy among the older years when we were younger, there is not an inch of the school that is not searched for signs of improper behaviour. It is awful but they haven’t gone extreme yet.”

“_ Yet. _”

We stood in a rather awkward and tense silence, the kind Daisy hates. Just as she was about to break it, George did.

“I think it is _ quite _ time we met the rest of the society,” George said with the airs and graces of a lord. “They all go to this school, do they not?”

“One doesn’t.” She glared at me. “One of is band is in _ Hong Kong _.”

“Ah.” Alexander nodded, remembering what I told him. “Where are the others?”

Daisy beckoned the others over with a wave.

“Meet Beanie, Lavinia, and Kitty,” I said, gesturing to them with a smile. “This is Alexander and this is George.”

“Watson, honestly!” Daisy huffed. “Proper introductions!”

With a grand gesture, she said, “Katherine ‘Kitty’ Freebody, Rebecca ‘Beanie’ Martineau, and Lavinia Temple, all members of the Wells and Wong Detective Society. Detective Society members, meet, George Mukherjee and Alexander Arcady, the Co-Chairs of the Junior Pinkertons.”

Alexander grinned and stuck out a hand, “Hullo, pleasure to meet you!”

All three of them shook hands with the boys, and I hugged Daisy so tight. I was so pleased they were all getting along.

Alexander and George were regaling is with the story of a small mystery solved over the summer when one of the maids appeared at the door, and Miss Barnard called for attention. 

“A telegram has arrived for Alexander Arc-aid-e,” she announced, holding it out.

“Arc-add-e,” he corrected, puzzled by the grim look of the maid. “Thank you.”

He stretched out a hand and took the telegram. “George,” he said, his voice wavering in the way a boy’s voice should not. “Can you read it?”

With a sigh and a piteous look, George took the telegram, held it up, and let out a sharp gasp. “Alex…” he breathed, a look of horror on his face. “I…” Gathering himself, he read it aloud. “The Countess, then stop, heart attack, stop, may not recover, stop, come to USA… stop.” Even George seemed tearful. “Alex, I am so sorry.”

I reached for Daisy, who held my hand right and rubbed a thumb over the back of it to soothe me.

Alexander gasped, a choking sort of sound that made it sound as if he was dying of arsenic poisoning in front of us. He gasped several times before swallowing one gasp and _ bursting _ into tears. Horrid, ugly tears that flushed his entire body and made his chest heave like a bellows huffing at a stubborn fire. Gasps and hiccups were suddenly wet and upset sounds, rather than the dry and horrifying sounds that came dry with shock. He retched several times around his tears, as if about to be sick.

After an agonising moment of sobbing, his hands pressed over his eyes so hard it looked painful, he wiped his hands, took a heaving breath, and bolted out of the hall.

“Alex!” George yelled, and sprinted after him.

Daisy turned to Beanie, Kitty, and Lavinia, looking strict and stricken. “Watch out for suspicious activity!” she ordered in a fierce tone and then turned to go after the boys.

We ran as fast as we could, out of the school and across the playing fields, following the dark streak that was George in his Weston blazer. We couldn’t see Alexander. 

I started to tire as we reached the Pavillion but Daisy smiled at me, said, “Buck up, Watson!” and ran faster.

George stopped in front of the house, the door ajar. We watched from afar as his shoulders sagged in relief, clearly having found Alexander. He looked back and his eyes widened, clear against his dark skin. He raced over to us. “Wait back,” he said. “That’s an order, detectives.”

Daisy went to object but I trod on her foot and she nodded.

* * *

Hazel requested my input for this part, which I did not want to provide at all. Hazel is a real pal who I can trust with all sorts of information but it’s strange to write down. Writing about emotions is not my strong suit. I jolly well _ feel _ them well enough but I am rather bad at describing them. George just told me to get on with because I’m using his lemon ink pen and he needs it to write to Harold.

I wasn’t thinking of much when I ran through Deepdean, across their playing fields, and into their boarding house. All I thought was that I had received the awful news their hall and if I got as far as I could go away from it then the news would stop being true. 

When I burst into the dormitory house, my door snagged on a rug and I went sprawling across the hall, my head smashing against a cabinet. At this point, I was shattered. Everything inside me was hollowed out by sadness, as if I had run out of tears to cry. My eyes stung in a way that caused pain to spider about my face, and I could barely swallow for how oddly full my throat felt. Miserable and far too much of a mess to return to the hall, I pushed my back up against the wall, drew my knees to my chest, crossed my arms on my knees, buried my head in my forearms, and began to cry again. 

I had only been curled in on myself for half a minute when somehow slipped through the ajar door. Whoever it was padded over the carpet and sank to the ground beside me. “Oh, Alex,” George whispered, sitting down beside me against the wall. “Alex, please. I’m not quite sure what I should _ do _. This is all lost on me.”

I opened my eyes and raised my head, and George gasped. “Alex! Oh, here, I haven’t used my handkerchief yet.” Taking it, I wiped my face and eyes, taking several breaths to quell the last of my tears. “Alex I… golly, I don’t know what you _ need _.” He set a hand on my shoulder. “Anything I can do, Alex? I—”

This was all the invitation I needed to turn and muffle my next sob in the padded shoulder of his blazer. My shoulders jerked up irregularly when I gasped out tears until George mumbled, “Oh, you idiot,” and wrapped his arms around me.

We ended up in a strange position, him against the wall and me sideways, my legs slung over his thighs and my face buried in his pullover while his arms were around my shoulders.

George says that his father finds it odd that contact between boys is not as encouraged in friendships, and George has adopted that. It was strange, just sitting there and soaking up comfort from my friend who doesn’t know how to deal with emotional people. It was surprisingly peaceful, wrapped up in each other and wearing uncomfortable Weston blazers, on the ground somewhere we shouldn’t have been.

“Alex,” he said softly, pulling away. “Alex, I—”

“Do you think she’ll die?”

I asked the question so suddenly it even shocked George. “No, Alex, I…” He sighed. “I’ve met her, remember? She’s a strong, resilient, intelligent woman who will beat away death with her walking stick and strangle it with her pearl necklaces.”

I chuckled. “I… thank you, George. Really.”

He is not a person who likes hugs, so he bumped our shoulders together and got to his feet. “Girls,” he said. “You can stop lurking outside now. Come inside.”

* * *

The next hour was a blur of change upon change. After we comforted Alexander on the sudden development (the poor countess!), Matron burst into the house and began to scold us while checking on Alexander at the same time.

As usual, George drew himself up and explained the situation in a lordly manner. Shockingly, Martin softened and escorted us back to the school. I bobbed at Alexander’s elbow and comforted him while Matron marched ahead with George and Daisy.

Once back at the school, we were deposited in front of the more important masters and mistresses and made to explain how we knew each other — they were astonished that The Honourable Daisy Wells should know an _ Indian _ and an _ American _. They looked at George in an impolite way, surprised and open-mouthed, how they all looked at me at first and sometimes still do. He seemed to not mind at all.

Talking over each other, Daisy and George explained that, in Cambridge last Christmas, we had been there to see Daisy’s aunt and her older brother and that the boys had been there to see Harold. We thought it best to not mention that Alexander was on the Orient Express for the murder we were involved in, as that would give him a bad reputation.

After that, Alexander was whisked off for some peace and quiet in another room and George promptly stuck with us for the duration of that evening. He had his book of mysteries with him and he and Daisy sat down to unpick the Jack The Ripper murders and lament over the awful policing methods. Daisy was gleefully exclaiming over how gruesome the last body was when George looked up and noticed me awkwardly standing by and watching everyone talk, teachers rushing about to separate boys and girls that got too close to one another.

“Sit down, Hazel,” he said, pointing to one of the chairs.

I sat and chipped in comments whenever both of them happened to be catching their breaths at the same time. That is, until Alexander walked back in with a red face and wet cheeks but smiling brightly, tugging his cuffs down.

George tugged over a chair and he sat between me and him, loud and ever so American against all the proper English voices in the room.

We were pondering over the case of the Axeman of New Orleans and trying to forget about heart attacks when a boisterous-looking older boy walked over. From his swaggering demeanour, I placed him as a prefect or head boy.

“Japanese,” he said, snapping his fingers at me. “You, there.”

My head snapped up and I felt myself burn.

“She’s _ Chinese _,” Daisy said in a condescending tone, and squeezed my hand to reassure me.

“Chinese, then,” he said, speaking slowly as if he thought I couldn’t speak English. “Say, is it true your father runs the opium trade?”

I was going to shrug, perhaps even agree like I have become resigned to doing because nobody listens to me. However, something changed. When I raised my eyes to meet his, I noticed Daisy, fierce and protective and gripping my hand tight, ready to lecture this Weston boy. Alexander was hurt on my behalf, eyes wide and red in the face, about to use his American chatter to talk this boy’s ear off. George had drawn himself up to look like the prince he once claimed, ready to give a short and succinct speech about this treatment of non-white people.

“No,” I said softly.

“What was that, Chinese?” His tone was mocking.

I stood and I felt dreadfully small beside this tall and round English boy. I thought of the Orient Express, how Alexander had confronted the possibility of his dear grandmother being a murderer with a level head and sensible detection. I thought of Hong Kong, where Daisy did not quite fit in and braved a new and strange culture with more gusto than I had ever seen her. I thought of London, of how George had stood there in the middle of the street having just been caught in the middle of teenage mischief and seemed three times taller than the ignorant man he spoke to. I though of my father, my mother, my little half-sisters and their mother, of Teddy and Ah Lan, and I knew I was not wrong. I knew I was right and he was wrong and that I could stand up for myself.

I felt very tall all of a sudden. 

“No, my father does not run the opium trade! He’s a banker in Hong Kong, successful as anything, and I’ll bet all he has that most of the fearfully rich people in this room have families with investments in his bank. Being Chinese doesn’t make my family the root of all evil! And I have a name. It’s Hazel Wong. Wong Fu Ying. I am… I’m a lot more than just Chinese.”

There was a beat of silence.

“_ Hazel _,” Daisy breathed eventually. “Hazel! That was wonderful!”

Alexander grinned as the Weston prefect opened his mouth, gawked for a moment as the thought of words to say, then closed it without saying a thing and stormed off with a red face. “I say! That was spiffing! I mean, it’s obvious your father doesn’t deal cadillac but how wizard to hear you say it!”

“It’d be queer if he did and yet you somehow went to school in England,” George remarked, clearly seeing the side I did: no man who dealt in bad business for ship his child from the country for fear of his child finding out that said business is bad and ratting him out.

Alexander dropped his voice low and whispered, “Almost as queer as I am.”

It took me a moment but I recalled hearing ‘queer’ used in the same vein as ‘fairy’ or that other awful f-word I shan’t write here. It feels like dirtying the pages. I snorted at his joke. “Alexander!” I said, as it was good to pretend to be astonished in case some other students overheard.

Daisy, after making some sort of comment to George about who that boy was (I assume this to be English shorthand), was at my elbow in an instant. “That was marvellous!” she told me in delight. “You were fantastic! Don’t I keep telling you that you have confidence and that you’re the best person I know? Don’t get too confident, though, or you’ll get even harder to boss about.”

“Miller’s looking tense,” Alexander commented.

George snorted beside him. “Indeed. And what a cool customer he usually is! He’s acting not unlike you-know-who did during the spy case.”

This surprised us for a moment: to us, the person we call ‘you-know-who’ is Martia from The Rue.

“You-know-who?” I asked for the both of us, as Daisy hates asking questions and seeming like she doesn’t know things.

“Inigo Bly,” Alexander said, and George’s face sunk into a scowl. “He was a prefect when we were in the Third Form. Every word he says beats all. He called me horrible words, and George words I won’t ever say.”

I had never seen George’s face so screwed up with pure anger: I didn’t think it was possible for him to look so enraged but he looked as if he should burst. Alexander set a hand on his shoulder and said, “George, breathe.”

“I’m calm.” He did not sound calm. “Bly called me dirty and that is the one insult I cannot take. It makes me sound like a criminal of the worst sort, as if my life and the world around me is smeared with dirt simply from me exisiting. He called us bolshies and Alexander a muzzler because he said that Americans are far more likely to be muzzlers.”

With his hand still on George’s arm, he said, “George, please calm down. Bly isn’t around anymore.”

“No,” he said. “He’s out inflicting his ideas on Oxford instead.”

Alexander stepped back. “Very well, perhaps he is. But you will be able to go to Cambridge when you’re older, stand tall because your father is a knight, and you’ll be able to show the world what they all should think, and they will listen because the world is becoming more accepting than ever!”

“You’re being optimistic about human nature, as usual,” he replied in an arch tone. Quieter, he said, “Thank you, Alex.”

He smiled. “Be careful how much you say that or you might make it seem like you actually like me.”

Before we could say anymore, they called us for bunbreak, and the Detective Society never says no to tea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment about what you thought of my writing! I thrive off feedback: let me know what you liked or what you'd like to see (or just scream)!


	5. Part Three - A Sickly Constitution (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day after the news of Alexander's grandmother, we walked to Deepdean with him to dispatch a telegram. When he got sick with worry and George rushed them up to their hotel room, Daisy and I took the opportunity to wander.

On Sunday morning, we were walking across to school from the house when the Weston students appeared from the tree line, walking in a collapsed gaggle that was the clear remnant of an organised line of students walking in pairs.

I searched for Alexander by his sandy blond hair and, when I couldn’t distinguish him from the blend of all shades of blond, I searched for George instead. It took me longer than it should have, as I was looking among the students.

Daisy realised who I was searching for and pointed to him over my shoulder. He was walking beside a teacher, Headmaster Twining, at the front of the school. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, which was ramrod straight, and his stare was piercing something ahead of him as he didn’t acknowledge the teacher he was beside.

When we reached the school, silenced from speaking to the boys by the waiting mistresses, we filed into the hall, sitting on a separate side to Weston.

Except for George. He stood beside the headmaster, looking uncaring.

My eyes found Alexander — I was on the end of the Fifth Year row and so was he, meaning only the aisle separated us — but I didn’t know how to get his attention.

Daisy, with flawless conviction, burst into a horrifying coughing fit. All the students around us looked over, and I turned to mouth at Alexander, ‘she’s pretending’. He nodded and frowned, questioning us with a look.

I pointed to the general direction of where George was, making sure the gesture wasn’t obvious. ‘Why isn’t he next to you?’ I mouthed.

He winced and was about to reply when the teachers called for quiet.

Miss Barnard greeted both schools and said, in a voice almost as shaky and afraid as she had been when Mrs Rivers died, that Headmaster Twining had something to say before our assembly continued as usual. A sea of Deepdean regulation boaters bobbed up and down as students — including Daisy and me — looked at each other in absolute confusion.

Headmaster Twining made his way onto the stage, George behind him and carrying a chair which he set down to the left of the middle of the stage. His facial expression was still one of boredom. Then the headmaster turned to face the students and most of us Deepdean students gasped, then tried to muffle our astonishment. I could not process what I was seeing. That couldn’t be happening. In his hand, we saw what the angle he stood at was hiding. A cane.

George said something, looking as bored as he did whenever anything interesting occurred. After he said this, the headmaster grabbed his wrist and laid a stroke of the cane over his palm. It made the most horrifying cracking sound that reverberated around the hall.

“ _ Are baap re _ !” George exclaimed. He told me later that it is an expression like ‘oh my gosh!’ his father often says that he has adopted. 

The Weston students looked bored, resigned to it. All but Alexander, who was leaning forward and gaping in shock, before changing to biting at his lip. I didn’t understand how they could check their nails and sigh, and it filled my throat with an uncomfortable heat that was sudden fury. How dare they cane my friend?

“Repeat after me,” he said. “I will not refuse to attend prayers.”

“I will say no such thing.” Even in this powerless situation, he held himself like a prince. He stood as if in battle, facing down the headmaster like an enemy. His challenging look had withered police officers, perhaps why the headmaster looked anywhere but his face. “You teach us that we’re not to lie and so I refuse to say that.”

The headmaster pointed to the chair. With a motion that accompanied some huff of annoyance, George walked over to it and knelt in front of the chair, crossing his arms on the seat and resting his head on them.

“Blazer,” the headmaster said.

With a huff, George shucked off his blazer and pullover, and tugged his shirt halfway up his back, then settled back into resting on his arms.

The headmaster knelt down, one knee on the stage, and I didn’t screw my eyes shut fast enough. The cane hit the bottom of George’s spine, only an inch above his trousers. It was so sudden that the crack hurt my ears. Daisy reached for my hand and held it as I closed my eyes. Even under the circumstances, I felt my face turn red as she took my sweating hand in her own. 

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

After the tenth horrifying crack, Daisy whispered to me, voice shaky, “It’s over now, Hazel.”

I opened my eyes to George putting on his pullover and blazer. He got to his feet, stumbling and in pain.

Staring down the headmaster with a freezing look, he said, “If you think that will entice me to stay in prayers, you are mistaken. I refuse to sit and bow my head to pray to a god I do not believe in.” He looked about the hall. “Expect yet another letter from my father. Thank you and Namaskar, sir.”

George, to the astonishment of every student, took the stairs down alone and left the hall down the central aisle. As he passed us, he squeezed Alexander's shoulder and winked at us. 

I could barely stumble through prayers, singing, and morning announcements. When we got out of the hall, Deepdean whispering in low tones about the caning, George was sitting on a chair in the entrance hall, reading Agatha Christie with a pleasantly engaged expression. 

“George!” Alexander said, rushing over with an outstretched hand. “Are you—”

“Yes,” he said in a frosty tone, standing and wincing. “Come on, we have an hour before the school performances. What should we do?”

“I’ve got to dispatch a telegram across the Atlantic,” he said, shifting on his feet. “Do you think I can get you to come with me?”

“Why? Some sort of ulterior motive?” Daisy asked knowingly, hands on her hips and smile intelligently glowing.

With a strange and sorrowful look in his big eyes, he said, “No. It is rather nice to have friends about in a time of crisis.” 

Even Daisy seemed to soften at that. Her look wasn’t resentment when she said, “Give a moment.”

“Wait!” Alexander held up a hand. “And  _ don’t _ make this into a case, please.”

I look at Daisy with a smile. “Ah, we know all about that, don’t we?”

“I didn’t commit the murder, did I?” she said, indignant.

“It was  _ my _ family,  _ you _ can put up with a little ribbing about how you more or less predicted it.” My gut flared with indignation and I take a step away from her.

Daisy steps back. “Okay. Okay, I apologise, Hazel. I’ll as Barny if we can accompany you. Get ready to cry on command, Arcady.” With an apologetic squeeze to my shoulder, she darted off. 

“Who—”

“—is that?”

George and Alexander locked eyes after finishing each other’s sentences.

“What?”

“Barny!”

“Our headmistress!” I said, almost shocked they didn’t know such a thing. “Do you not have a nickname for yours?”

“Twitting,” Alexander said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I must get ready to cry on command.”

* * *

Miss Muncible — our science teacher who is mouldy all over and very droopy altogether, like bread at dinner soaked in too much gravy — agreed to accompany us into Deepdean to dispatch telegrams. Of course, we had to stop back at the Majestic hotel so Alexander could gather money.

“How is that teacher at your school, Mr Miller?” Miss Muncible enquired.

Alexander and George looked at each other with eyebrows raised and George then winked. Alexander launched at full speed into his American chatter, while George slowed down and began to walk beside us instead.

“Mr Miller is the most fearfully dull teacher you would ever think of,” he said with a roll of his eyes. They don’t know much of our first mystery as Daisy likes to keep some things to ourselves as our own trophies, so it makes sense that they think that spy teacher of theirs was an oddity and that fearfully dull teachers are fearfully dull all the way to their bones. I don’t want to correct him. It’s a pleasant, naive thing to think. “He’s not married, he has no children, only these fearfully elderly parents who we once met quite by accident. Miller’s of a sickly constitution and is forever shivering and sneezing in lessons. Half of the times I’ve been sick at Weston is because he’s sneezed on my head. Alex is almost never ill so he was quite astonished that it’s not an intelligent idea to stand up fast when sick.”

“He fainted?” Daisy said with some amusement. “Of course.”

George nodded. “Exactly. Anyway, the point  _ is _ that he’s dull and boring. Alex and I spy on teachers to keep our senses sharp and Alex  _ fell asleep  _ in class while watching Miller.”

Daisy, with a knowing look, said, “So many teachers are dull. Most adults are, in fact.”

“Oh, terribly,” he said and raised a finger. “In fact, there is this one adult my father continually has over to dinner who is so boring she must have something to hide. I’d like to hear your thoughts.”

Daisy agreed, remembering that she is allowed to appear interested and clever around George.

When George began talking about English people things (class and the other things I do not understand), I decided to leave them to it and tune into Miss Muncible and Alexander talking. 

“He taught me, you see,” she said, sounding almost fond. “He used to teach at another school like Deepdean, you see. He was  _ quite _ handsome and all the students adored him.”

Alexander pulled a face of confusion. It is hard to imagine any of our teachers at all being attractive. The last time we had an attractive teacher, it was The One and someone in our school started a club (Daisy recently said to me that it was more like a cult) and then someone got murdered.

Everything leads to murder nowadays.

“ _ Right _ ,” he said, sounding awfully American. “He teaches us English. We’re doing crime writing, does Deepdean do any of that?”

She looked horrified at the prospect. “ _ Heavens _ no! That’s not proper for the girls here, considering as we are training them to be ladies.”

Alexander burst into laughter that he brilliantly disguised as a coughing fit, Alexander managed to shift to a conversation about what lessons are like at Weston compared to Deepdean. This I could join in on and it was a very strange conversation. I do not like Miss Muncible at all and Alexander is so interesting he makes me comfortable talking about the things teachers should not know. He had to pinch me three times to stop me from mentioning crimes.

When we reached the hotel, Alexander grew suddenly pale. It was as if all the colour in his face dropped into his feet. “I feel sick,” he announced.

Daisy has faked illness plenty of times before and, as Alexander is the actor of the Junior Pinkertons, I assumed this was part of some sort of investigation they were doing.

George sighed and rolled his eyes. “This is why I shouldn’t let you get upset, Alex. May we?”

Miss Muncible nodded and, with an, “Oh, thank goodness,” the two bolted inside.

“May we go after them?” I asked.

Miss Muncible nodded. “I’m going to sit here and read a book, you need to be back in fifteen minutes and let me know if you won’t be.”

I am sometimes grateful some of our mistresses are so ‘don’t-care’.

The two of us walked into the lobby, stained grand and red with soft auburn carpet, golden arches, and beautiful chandeliers. I gawked up at the chandeliers, my eyes dancing about the halls as Daisy made a beeline towards the desk, asking for the rooms of, “Mr Mukherjee and Mr Arcady.”

To our surprise, they were rooming  _ together _ (it shocked us given their school’s complete crackdown on possible sodomy). We walked up the first floor and came out in the centre of the hall, light flooding into the hall from a room to our right.

Accompanying those was a horrifying retching noise, George impatiently saying, “Oh, do hurry up, Alex!”

He was actually ill! Daisy coughed and peered over at him. With a knowing look, he gestured for us to come over.

“Alex gets awfully sick when he’s anxious,” George said, face pale (not that Daisy could tell, he looks as dark as anything to her all the time, even though I could see that he was much paler than how tanned he had become from the holidays). “I’m not a fan of sickness. Arsenic poisoning? Perfectly alright. When things that you have placed in your body are actively coming out, that is when I’m disgusted.”

I nodded. I could understand even though I am the detective in our society that gets ill over mysteries.

“Well,” Daisy said, looking put-out. She does not like sick people. “I suppose we should wander around and detect. Hazel?”

“Oh!” I said, nodding as my world was reduced to the three inches of space between us. “Yes, that sounds good!”

Another retching noise startled all of us. “I’ll go and look after him,” George said, the closest to caring about something I had ever seen him. “Don’t touch the room on the opposite side of the hall on the far left upstairs, that sickly teacher we have is up there.”

Daisy looked at me, clearly having Thoughts, which mean new cases for the Detective Society. “I think, Hazel,” she said as she looped her arm through mine, “That there is more to teachers than they realise.”

“They don’t realise that all grown-ups are interesting,” I agreed.

“So, we are absolutely looking in that room.”

I couldn’t find it in myself to disagree. 

* * *

When we reached the door George had specifically told us to stay away from, Daisy told me to keep watch while she looked through the keyhole. She dropped to her knees and peered through the keyhole. I was about to voice what an astonishingly bad idea it was when Daisy gasped. 

“Hazel!” she said in an arresting tone, taking a step back and grabbing for my wrist. “Hazel, look!”

“No!” I said. “I don’t want to look.”

She was suddenly far too close to me, lips inches from mine as she fiddled about in my plaited hair for a hairpin. I felt her breath, smelling of strawberry jam from the stingy amounts they gave us every morning, on my brow as her hands were buried in my hair, messing it as she hunted through each part of it. 

My heart leapt into overdrive and I wondered with a jolt if it was what love or death felt like. It certainly  _ felt _ like I was dying. I was flushed from head to toe, with shaky hands, a reeling head, breaths that came uneven and my heart so fast I thought it would shake from my ribcage. “Daisy,” I said very suddenly. “I think I’m dying.”

“Don’t be silly, Hazel,” she said, finally coming up with a hairpin. “You  _ are _ rather red, though. What _ are _ you thinking about doing with Alexander?”

I was about to genuinely ask who would think about sex in the middle of what was most likely the start of a murder investigation when I realised that I had no doubt Daisy would seriously answer with something about the Rue. “I… let’s move on.”

As she picked the lock, I gathered some semblance of control with very deep breaths.

When she pushed the door open, I saw exactly what I knew I would and fell back in shock. “Daisy!”

She reached out for me, helping me to my feet. We stood in the hall for a long moment as I processed what I had seen, Daisy clasping my hand in both of hers.

Inside the room, on the bed, was a body. A  _ dead _ body, so white and drained it hurt my eyes. The dead man was middle-aged and with a sparse beard, with the sickly constitution that George had promised. He was dressed in a suit, missing his shoes and blazer, and the wound was clear: an enormous slash dissecting his throat. His stomach was bisected too, but I couldn’t tell if anything had been stolen Jack The Ripper style because it was all so red. The red, so bright, stained the sheets all around him until it seemed as though he was bathing in blood.

“Oh my god.”

“That,” Daisy said, “is quite horrid.”

Given that I could see a lot of what should definitely be inside a person  _ outside  _ a person, I was not really concentrating. “Daisy! Don’t look!” I said in a whisper.

I do not like corpses.

“Don’t be silly, we have a chance to investigate here! Go fetch the boys, Alexander has a casebook he can write in.” She poked me in the side and I scurried out, glad to be free of the body.

* * *

I rapped on the door to their room and George opened it, still talking back into the room. I heard the tail end of a conversation as I waited outside, ad George finished it off with a lovable and jokey, “You’re a prick, Alex,” before turning to face me.

“Oh!” he said. “Hello, Hazel. We were just discussing my crush. That idiot can’t guess who it is and I don’t plan on telling him.”

“That’s… nice.” I felt like throwing up myself. “Is Alexander alright?”

“Hullo, Hazel!” he shouted from inside the room. “Don’t come in, if you don’t mind. I’m getting dressed.”

“He’s fine,” George said, rolling his eyes. “Hazel, you’re pale. Come and sit down. Alex, are you done yet?”

“Just buttoning my shirt, come on in if you want to,” he said.

With an amused and surprised huff, he said, “I mean, fuck propriety, right?”

“You  _ swear _ ?” Even though I had just seen a dead body, this somehow shocked me more.

“Who doesn’t these days?” George replied, his absurdly well-bred voice too proper for swear words. “As long as no adult hears you swearing. That is the single thing that would get our token American here caned.”

Each hotel room was laid out with a bathroom on the left as you walked in the door and a coat rack beside the door. There was a corridor the length of the bathroom that opened out into the bedroom, which was two single beds up against the left wall, doors on the back wall that opened up into a balcony, and a desk and two chests of drawers along the right wall. On the desk was a bible, as every hotel room contains.

It was obvious who had claimed what side of the room, as George’s side of the room had a neatly-made bed and his suitcase stowed underneath the bed along with a couple of pairs of shoes, books were neatly stacked on his nightstand, and all the drawers in the chest he had claimed where closed. Alexander’s side was chaos: the covers were a mess (clearly housekeeping hadn’t been yet), half of the drawers were open in his quest to find a new set of his uniform, his shoes were in the centre of the floor, and there was a half-written letter on the desk blotchy all over from Alexander’s lack of using blotting paper.

“I am not the token American,” said the very American Alexander, who was struggling with his shirt buttons. 

George pointedly averted his eyes and I watched him do his version of blushing, which is shifting back and forth while picking at his cuffs. “Hazel, come and sit. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

With an arm over my shoulders, he steered me to the chair at the desk and I sat down. “What’s wrong, Hazel?” Alexander asked, coming over in his creased school shirt.

“I didn’t see a ghost,” I blurted. “I saw a dead body.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment about what you thought of my writing! I thrive off feedback: let me know what you liked or what you'd like to see (or just scream)!


	6. Part Three - A Sickly Constitution (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the revelation of earlier in the day, I wrote up the official beginnings of what is to be another murder investigation.

The Junior Pinkertons snapped from being ordinary and joking Weston students into the serious detectives I know they are.

Alexander whirled about the room to find his casebook, while George paced to the window, fingers steepled in front of his face like Sherlock Holmes.

“A body?” he asked after a long moment of silence. “Who?”

Alexander opened his casebook on his knees. “What method?”

I feel myself withdraw, my stomach clenching. There was not _ supposed _ to be a murder. Today was supposed to be good and legal, there was not supposed to be a death. Nothing was meant to happen, we were meant to just have fun with the boys and whisper about being in love.

I am sick and tired of dead bodies.

“Alex, you idiot,” George said, and moved to wrap an arm around my shoulders. “Hazel, it’s alright. Take a deep breath, we’re going to solve this and you’ll be alright. You won’t be in danger, you have me and Alexander and _ Daisy _, who will never let you get hurt ever.”

Alexander crouched down in front of me, laying a hand on my knee in a horrid break of propriety that made George noticeably flinch. I did too: it’s my Deepdean training. “Exactly. Daisy will die before she lets any murderer lay a finger on you!” Alexander said. “But it won’t come to that, ever. Heroines and heroes do not die, Hazel. Everybody knows that.”

I flung myself at him. Hugging Daisy is not as calming anymore now that I am attracted to her, as I am hyper-aware of what parts of her are touching me and where my hands are on her body and how steady my breathing is. Alexander, though bony and awkwardly tall, is a nice person to hug. “Hey there, Hazel,” he said awkwardly, wrapping his arms around my shoulders.

“Look, this is the first murder you’ve ever had the body for!” George added, trying to see the bright side of it. “Now, let us go down there and detect.”

I made a sort of whining noise, whimpering out a, “No!”

Alexander kept his arm around my shoulders. “Come on.”

I agreed.

* * *

George bolted down the corridor like he couldn’t wait to see the body, tearing down the stairs. Alexander sighed and walked beside me, only grabbing me and making me move faster when we heard George say, “See here! You cannot pick the lock to save your life, give it here at once!”

By the time we reached the door, it was flung wide open. “See here!” George said. “Keep to the sides of the room, stay on the carpet. Don’t touch the hardwood.”

Daisy takes the lead. “I’ll take the body. Hazel, come with me.”

“Please no!”

“You saw Miss Bell, didn’t you? Mr Curtis, Mrs Daunt, Elizabeth. You saw Chummy, you saw Donald. You saw Su Li, you saw Annie Joy. It’s not too difficult to look at a body.” She stares me down and I realise that I am brave.

“Alright. I’ll look.”

George makes a haughty sound. “Oi! I want to look too.”

“So do I,” says Alexander, peering into the room. “Holy shit!”

I edge along the side of the carpet, looking into the room and onto the bed. “Oh my goodness!”

Swallowing the sickness rising in my throat, I let myself look. The dead man, if he was alive, would surely be of sickly constitution. His skin sagged on his face but I could tell that, when he was alive, cheek bones stuck out alarmingly. All the blood that was not on the bedclothes had sunk to the bottom of his body, leaving him a ghastly white.

George crept up the body and knelt to peer under the man’s chin at his throat. The slash bisecting it was horrific, cut through so he was near decapitated.

“Alex,” he murmured with fascination. “Look here. See how it has been cut. Daisy, Hazel, if you want to see, come too. Alex, note it down.”

He nodded and wrapped one arm around his casebook, sketching out a diagram of what it looks like.

I was still frozen, gawking at the stomach. It was almost as if the man had been peeled, and there was an enormous gap where something should have been.

“I think his stomach and intensities are gone,” I rasped out.

Daisy, looking away from where she was measuring the depth of the cut, gawked at me. “You _ are _ right, Watson!”

George peered over. “Oh. So they are. Alex, draw that out too.”

He glances over and blanches. “Oh my Lord. No, no… no… absolutely not…” He pauses and gags, clamping a hand over his mouth.

Crossing the room, George places a hand on his shoulder. “Alex, Alex, breathe. See here, turn away for a moment. You’re alright.”

I gawk, fascinated, at this soft side of George. I would never know that someone like him could be any semblance of soft and kind.

“Watson,” Daisy hissed. “While they’re distracted… look there.”

Where she was pointing out of the balcony windows, into the bushes that border the hotel further out. I noticed… nothing. Then I squinted and sunlight glared off of something and into my eye.

A knife. Thrown from the balcony and into a bush.

George turned back around and I looked over at him. “Sightseeing?” he asked with amusement, followed by a gesture to the door. “We need to leave. We’ll be caught.”

Miss Muncible looked surprised when we emerged. “You took rather a while, girls,” she said, scowling at us.

“I was very sick,” Alexander said, looking rather pale from the sight of Mr Miller’s body. “Yet I feel better now.”

With a sniff, she said, “Alright. Let us head into the town, then. You have telegrams to dispatch?”

* * *

**ALEXANDER**

I left the telegram office freshly teary-eyed after dispatching three telegrams, though only two were to my family.

To my father, I said: CANT LEAVE UK STOP UPDATE ME STOP SEND LETTER STOP LOVE YOU STOP

To my grandmother, I said: SORRY TO HEAR STOP I LOVE YOU STOP STAY WELL STOP

To the Inspector Priestley, I said: TEACHER MURDERED STOP HARD TO INVESTIGATE STOP DEEPDEAN STOP

“Alright, Alex?” George asked when I left the office.

“Fantastic,” I replied in a voice much more joival than I felt. “Let us get back to Deepdean.”

* * *

When we arrived back, we were hustled into the hall and sat in neat rows to watch the plays from the younger students of the school. Because we arrived late, we were crammed in at the back beside each other, despite the rest of the school being seperated from the opposite sex.

Hazel pulled out her casebook (a deep pink one) from up her pullover and set it on her knees, quickly turning over the pages at the beginning. I caught a glimpse of my letters to her and was suddenly grateful to an insane degree. She then tore out a page from the centre, and set it on the page in front of her.

_ Write on here, _she wrote.

_ Who do we suspect? _I wrote on the piece of paper.

_ We have two categories of people, _ Daisy wrote. _ Students and teachers. _

George added below, branching off with an arrow. _ Weston and Deepdean. _

I reached out. _ Miller is boring as shit, no teachers care enough to murder him. _

Hazel snorted.

_ What is Miller’s role at Weston? _Daisy wrote.

Hazel flicked at Daisy’s wrist. _ Does he dislike any other teachers? _

_ I don’t think he has anything about him murder-worthy, _I wrote, only to realise and cross it out.

_ He is the confiscation master! _ George wrote, reaching to squeeze my arm in gleeful realisation. It felt as if sparks were scattered across my skin. _ Girls, read this: he’s the teacher who seizes all sorts of things from students to check for things like German connections. Many students are careful to hide their journals to ensure he doesn’t see their private writing but sometimes he works out where journals are hidden and reads them. If the information isn’t crucial intelligence (like things related to the Kaiser), he doesn’t disclose to anybody but he definitely knows things about students no one else does. _As he wrote this, his hand hovered over his breast pocket, where students keep their journals and I was confused. As far as I knew, he didn’t keep a journal. 

I suddenly realised something and shot out a hand to write. _ Marvin and Micah keep journals. _

_ Balakrishnan keeps one too and his family is not in a good position right now, _ George added. _ Otto Gallagher keeps one and his family are German and I think they want to flee Germany because of the Kaiser. _

Daisy leant over to write, her hand very fair against George’s dark one. _ We need a plan of action. _

_ Find out who has a motive to kill him, _ Hazel wrote, her handwriting rather neat with close but tight loops. _ Daisy and George, this is your job. Also you, Alexander. _

_ Why not you? _I asked.

_ Daisy and George are charming so they can flirt information out of the opposite sex. You’re a charming and very white All-American so all the Deepdean teachers will SWOON. _

George’s hand darted forward, knocking against mine. _ My primary function is flirting? _

Hazel paused to consider before writing, _ One of many functions, yes. _

With a chuckle, Daisy nudged both of their hands before they devolved into a full-on writing fight. _ Hazel, write this down in the casebook. _

**Plan of Action**

  1. Find out who held a grudge against Mr Miller.
  2. Write down a suspect list.
  3. Find out where the suspects were at the time of the murder.
  4. Tail the remaining suspects.
  5. Not get caught, arrested, or outed.

When Hazel looked up at the rest of us, her expression was a grim slash.

_ Who is point 5 directed at, Hazel? _George wrote, the top of his nose wrinkling in confusion.

_ Daisy, _ she listed, which George knew. _ You. Myself. _

I reached forward. _ And me. _

George dropped his pencil and caught it between his feet with the softest of snaps. After all the teachers had looked away, he grabbed it again and scrawled, much messier than usual, _ You, Alexander? _

_ I like boys as well as girls, _I told him, looking up and bracing myself for disgust.

Instead, his entire body was locked into a tense freeze and his jaw was set rather hard. With a flick of her pen, Daisy diffused the tension by writing, _ Well, that makes all of us. _

I looked at Daisy (who, even though I like George, is still very pretty) and she looked contemplative. _ I hate to say this, _ she wrote, _ but I have my suspicions about those boys in your school. _

_ Micah and Marvin? _I wrote.

_ I hate to say this but you may be correct, _George wrote.

When I looked at him he looked more grim than I have ever seen.

* * *

The Deepdean play was rather good, despite the concern weighing my shoulders into a slouch. A rather pretty Egyptian girl — Amina El Maghrabi, Daisy whispered to us — played the rather beautiful Juliet, and her lover from Montague was played by a Fourth Form brunette girl with her hair all tucked up into a hat. The dramatic final speech brought a tear to the eyes of the teachers, though it couldn’t last too long as George and I were uprooted for our seats to get ready for the Weston play, obscure and utterly boring. My British accent is a failing affair, shown by an adlib when George roughly snatched my shoulder and said, in his character's rolling and gruff bass, “You don’t have to sound American to charm a woman, Dodger.”

Despite the awkward pickpocketing that results in accidental groping, vaulting tables that force me to grab onto George’s shoulder to stop my fall, and American-ised adlibs that made the rhymes in poetic monologues off-kilter, George and I got the largest applause aside from Loui Manning who plays the upper-class young man. When we bow together, our hands on the back of each other’s collars as holding hands would make us ‘seem fae’, George drops his hand to my back pocket and steals Dodger’s prop wallet, raising it high above his head.

Laughter raised from both schools as I chased him across the stage to where we stand to allow Louis through. “Here, Alex,” George said as he handed it back. “You did well.”

“Don’t patronise me.”

“You did,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder and offering a smile. “Nobody noticed those slip-ups except me, as I am the one who you grab onto when you’ve slipped up.”

Metaphorically and literally, as cheesy as that sounds.

“And you were fantastic. Is your throat not sore?”

“No. I’ve had practise.”

* * *

We had an hour between the Weston play and the Deepdean dance troupe to do whatever we wanted. Of course, within reason and by that I mean on the grounds of Deepdean.

The four of us made an odd picture of the new face of Britain as we strode across the perfectly manicured lawn: Daisy and walked I arm-in-arm in our Deepdean uniform (the early-Autumn sun bathing Daisy’s blonde hair in sunlight that made it glow golden and her baby-blue eyes alight with the thrill of a new case, my brown hair dull and my darker skin bronzing in the sun because of its stubborn refusal to acknowledge suncream) while the boys strode alongside us, arms brushing against each other and laughs that carried across the lawn (Alexander’s typically-American blond hair was mussed because of his constant running his hand through it, and George’s perfectly-turned-out Weston uniform and Brylcreemed hair forced people to almost forget his Indian appearance).

“What is the order of business, detectives?” George asked, flourishing a wave towards someone a little way away across the lawn.

“Hazel, casebook?” Daisy asked.

I untucked it from under my arm and we stalled at the South Lawns, leaning against the fence. “Who could have a grudge on Miller? We need a comprehensive list.”

“Well, no one knows that he’s been murdered, yet. Apart from the murderer, of course,” Alexander said, making a sweeping gesture. “We can go around and ask without looking suspicious as to _ why _ we want to know these things.”

With a gasp, Daisy says, “I’m sure I can phone my uncle from Matron’s office! I’ll ask him about anything we need to know before he finds out why we need to know.”

“What else do we need to do before everyone finds out exactly what happened to Millier?” George asked.

I’m, once again, astonished that we are working _ together _ on a _ case _ with no ill feelings on either side. Plenty of romantic feelings, of course.

“We need to find out who had a grudge on Miller. We need to phone Daisy’s uncle. We need to constantly refresh the state of the body in our minds — sorry, Alexander, I know. I’m as grossed out as you are — and try and see if Mr Miller had any important belongings.”

“So we can steal them?” Daisy asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No!” came my horrified reply. “It’s not stealing if you put them back afterwards. Then it’s only borrowing.”

“Hazel Wong,” Daisy said, her blue eyes sparkling as she grabbed my hand, “I could _ kiss _you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment about what you thought of my writing! I thrive off feedback: let me know what you liked or what you'd like to see (or just scream)!


	7. Part Three - A Sickly Constitution (III)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With half an hour to do what we liked, we took the opportunity to outline our timings and lead some interrogations. Not without argument, of course.

In their harsh and clashing way, George and Daisy fought over who would investigate what parts of our mismatched inquisition into Miller’s death.

“They’re like mutts marking territory,” Alexander whispered in my ear, and I snorted a laugh.

“ _ Right _ !” George announced, turning and clapping his hands once, sharply. “Alex, we’re going to be going and asking around the younger years about where everyone was this morning, our secondary goal is finding out about motives. Hazel, you and Daisy are going to go around the older years and find out who had a grudge on Miller, your secondary goal being to find out where everyone was this morning.”

With a scowl, Daisy said, “Ass, I was going to tell them.”

“How are we supposed to get information out of the older years?” I asked, wondering how they would react to a person of colour that was also a girl. After seeing the less than favourable reactions to George, my hopes were not high.

“You’re going to hate this, but… you’re going to have to play off the ‘exotic’ stereotype,” George said, and I felt an ache in my chest at the very idea. “I am so sorry, Hazel.”

“It’s alright,” I replied, licking my lips nervously and trying to swallow down the sickly distaste in my throat at the very idea. “It’s for a case, right?”

Daisy raised a hand. “Wait. Shouldn’t we go through the timings that we already know? You know, before we go any further?”

“Make it quick,” George said curtly, sparkling at her. “Isn’t this bunbreak extended?”

With a smile, Alexander nodded and took out his own notebook, nudging George’s arm as we all leant back against the fence. “Come on! Hazel, are you ready?”

My pencil was poised over my casebook and I said, “Yes, go ahead.

George and Alexander looked at each other, sharing a detective look as they tried to remember the events of that morning.

“The murder must have happened between five and nine,” George said, a fraction before Alexander could get the words out. “They have us wake up at five and we left the hotel at nine, and the state of the body when we saw it meant that it couldn’t have happened since we left.”

Daisy and I glanced at each other, the dread of an impossible case creeping onto both of us.

“It could have been anybody,” she said with a sigh, the wrinkle appearing at the top of her nose. “Any student or teacher from Weston could have done it.”

“No.” Hearing Alexander be so blunt with no follow-up was incredibly strange, so I watched as he turned to George and motioned to his own wrist, miming tapping a watch face. “George, you’re obsessed with routine and you’re always checking the time. We can get some exact timings down and narrow it further. And I can narrow it down from… after breakfast, shall we call it?”

I heard the whispered words that weren’t spoken, that said  _ after you were punished _ . The idea that George had been punished both before and after arriving at Deepdean.

Closing his eyes, George leant back against the fence and began to recall. “We all woke at five in the morning on the dot, and we were called for breakfast at seven. We have set prep that we have to do ourselves because we apparently need to learn how to pace ourselves and do work without being sanctioned and ordered every minute.”

“Which is fair. I read it in a journal, and the Swedish theory of independent education and self-taught assignments to practise and prove what we’ve learnt, and to be able to apply the skills practically is really coming into its own in England and the USA,” Alexander said. I felt myself start in surprise; it is always strange to hear Alexander abruptly come into his own and be so incredibly knowledgeable all of a sudden. Whenever it happens, it’s when he talks about scientific discoveries and the intricacies of human emotions and gestures, and the way human connections influence our lives. 

Daisy blinked in surprise. “I… very good, Alexander. That’s…” She frowned. Daisy does not like to give praise, especially not to Alexander Arcady. Disgruntled, the wrinkle appeared at the top of her nose and she folded her arms.

With a chuckle, George checked his nails. “You’re all morons. Now for the timings, since that I religiously time keep, let’s be on. So, we woke at five and I made a dash for the shower to steal all the hot water. That took, oh, ten minutes or so, and I was dressed and ready by twenty-five past, and then walked out of the hotel room, which is when I first checked my watch. I decided to walk around because it is a rather nice building. I walked past Miller’s room and he was being seen by a doctor, who had a stethoscope pressed against his bare chest. He’s always been someone that's sickly. They just said that he needed to rest for a week or so and couldn’t participate in the events of the Social. I hovered outside the door pretending as if I didn’t care a jot what I heard. That brings us to twenty-to six.”

“Yes?” Daisy asked, an impatient wrinkle at the top of her nose. “Go on! We need to narrow it down more.”

“I’m  _ getting to that _ ,” George said, scowling at her. “Then I moved to casually admiring some art and then tailed the doctor down the stairs to Twitting’s room, where he informed Twitting of Miller’s illness and said that he wouldn’t be available to teach for possibly a week. That brings us to quarter to six. I wandered about for a little while longer, thinking about architecture and the art and the configurations of the rooms and everything else one could possibly deduce about a building. I then walked back to our room — I got through the door at three minutes to six — and found that Bob and Otto had come into our room and were waiting outside the bathroom door to prank Alex. I told them to bugger off, and they did because everyone knows how particular I am about having my own area. Bob, however, asked where I had been. Unwilling to admit that I was walking around and just contemplating the architecture because that is seen as fae and goodness knows that everybody has their suspicions already, I ended up dithering until Alex got out of the shower on the hour, and told them to piss off. We went down to the drawing-room and started on our prep work.”

“It’s so abysmally  _ easy _ , isn’t it?” Alexander said, and George made a sympathetic noise of agreement. “I think I could finish all our work for the year in a week if you didn’t get detention every five minutes.”

Rounding on him, George spluttered out an offended, “You’re the one who keeps ending up in the San on my behalf!”

“Ladies, please,” Daisy said with the ghost of a smile on her face, reaching over to take my hand and squeeze it. Warmth shot up and down my arm in ripples, and I just knew that I was blushing.

My hand ached from noting all his exact timings down, though I was too impressed by his sense of order to care about the shooting pain. Admiration decorated Alexander’s features in a sparkling way, and Daisy’s nose had the wrinkle at the top as she realised just how intelligent George is.

“Miller was alive at... at twenty to six?” I hesitantly confirmed.

“More like twenty-three to but you can have that,” he replied, adjusting the lapels of his blazer with long and thin pianist’s fingers. “Now—“

“George, I’ve had a thought,” Alexander said.

“Go ahead.” 

“Eh…” Seemingly hesitant to share his thoughts, he said, “Only… why would you slit someone’s throat and _ then  _ gut them, if not to hide the stomach contents?”

In her clipped, all-knowing tones, Daisy said, “Almost behead, actually.”

Even though he usually joins in with Daisy’s ribbing, George snapped, “ _ Wells _ . He has a point. So you think…”

“They poisoned him and failed,” I said at the same time as Daisy. “Or… maybe he was going to reveal their secret that day and the poison wasn’t working quick enough, so they murdered him?”

“Maybe he was poisoned with an overdose of some medication or another, or something that can be traced back to one student. They… stole his internal organs to hide evidence of ingested poison,” Alexander said, slowly processing his way through the realisation that someone he knew was a murderer. “Sure.”

Shooting up to being alert, Daisy said, “Or we’re dealing with a serial killer!”

George gasped a little. “Or that! Or that, yes, or that!”

While the two of them began to enthuse about the mentalities behind serial killers breaking and beginning to kill, Alexander moved over to me with a chuckle already in his voice. “Just because there are serial killers at Deepdean…”

“When a tree falls in a forest…” I said, and we both dissolved into giggles.

Alexander is very nice to laugh with, the smallest of inside jokes from our letters make me feel as though I could split at the seams from giggles. When we calmed down, George and Daisy had stopped talking entirely and were standing quite still, looking this way and that at the eyes focused on them.

At first, I couldn’t think what it would be. We weren’t talking loudly enough to be heard by anybody, so why should people stare? And then I realised. I heard. I saw.

I saw Clementine clutching an issue of her favourite gossip magazine a few weeks old, and I noted the name:  _ Abercrombie _ , slang for a know-it-all. I remembered, at Christmas, Amanda dissolving into peals of laughter as Alfred said that he had heard from his sister that Bertie was in a  _ gossip magazine _ , and all of us trying to politely hide our giggles while Bertie complained until he was hoarse.

“Why do I crop up in magazines occasionally?” he had chuckled. “Goodness knows that no one will ever take me seriously again if I’m in teenage  _ gossip magazines _ .”

As subtle as I could be so that she didn’t notice, I squinted at the page that she had it open to, showing all of her friends. The headline wasn’t much worse than the harmless articles questioning whether he is at Cambridge to study or drink champagne:  _ Aesthete or Worse? _ it read in bold white lettering.

I almost felt helpless from the horror, that the rumours about Bertie were still circulating even now, with a war on the horizon, but my panic was shattered when Daisy whispered something and George roared with laughter.

“Never!” he said, eyes wide and voice laced with laughter. “When did he find that out?”

“Alfred told us all about it while you and Harold went off on your hunt for a Mandir,” she replied.

Alexander smiled — a little awkwardly, I thought — and ran a hand through sandy hair. “Is this the gossip magazine thing?”

Outraged, George blustered, “You knew and  _ didn’t tell me _ ?”

“Once again, Daisy put on her most polite voice and said, “Ladies? Break it up, please.”

Alexander had a firm set in his jaw and it became clear that he was getting ready to draw himself up and slick on plenty of American charm. “Good luck, girls?”

With a glowering look cast in his direction, Daisy said, “Good luck,  _ Alexander _ .”

* * *

The thing about girls and boys intermingling is that there is always the expectation of romance in the air. It was clear on the Orient Express when Jocelyn winked at Alexander and I the moment we met, and with Daisy’s (admittedly correct) deductions about my letters to Alexander in November last year, and there in the way that Bertie and Harold subconsciously matched us up to each other in their minds in Cambridge, girl-boy, girl-boy. Perhaps it was the letter I received from my father after I came home from Hong Kong, admonishing me for hugging Ah Lan goodbye and allowing him to kiss the back of my hand that made me realise that being friends with boys was so apparently  _ not allowed. _

I always thought it was ridiculous, the constant expectation that everyone was interested in every student of the opposite sex. However, looking around the Deepdean fields, I realised that there was a point in all the judgement.

People were flirting left, right, and centre, girls batting their lashes and half-swooning against their friends as boys squared up and leant forward and practically  _ leered _ at the besotted girls.

“This is so bizarre,” I whispered to Daisy. “It’s like they’ve never seen boys before!”

“ _ You _ hadn’t, before the Orient Express!” she argued, a playfully teasing tone to her voice. “Oh, I say, there’s a boy over there looking to speak to someone. Let’s go and pretend to be ordinary little girls!”

I had a feeling, as we walked towards the two tall and quintessentially English Weston boys, that this case was going to  _ hurt _ someone.

As we approached, one of the boys noticed us and grinned sharply, as if he was a predator to his prey. “Well, hello there,” he practically purred at us, and Daisy leant into my ear to make a pretend vomiting noise.

I chuckled into my hand and said, “Oh, hello!” I hoped that I sounded curious and sweet, and not like a suspicious girl detective on the cusp of throwing up. “What’s your name?”

“Micheal Burton,” said the first boy, who was tall and broad with blond slicked-back hair. “And you girls are?”

“I am the Honourable Daisy Wells!” Daisy introduced first, and I was thankful that she was setting the tone. That was until I saw the unmistakable recognition on his face.  _ Fallingford _ .

I keep my grip on Daisy’s hand tighter than ever as I say, “I’m Hazel Wong!”

“I’m Peter Nithertcott,” says the second boy, offering out a hand. I noticed that he was missing his fourth finger on his right hand. It’s not unusual, given that one of my friends from Hong Kong is missing his left arm below his elbow, but it certainly stuck out when his hand shook mine. “How are you, girls?”

“I’m well, thank you,” Daisy said, plotting how to pose her next question. “I’ve always wondered, what are the teachers like at your school?”

With a low laugh, Peter said, “Oh, they’re god-awful! Always sticking their nose in where they don’t belong. They read all of our letters, too, it’s just cruel.”

I paused, remembering what Alexander told me about the letter-smuggling ring that they busted while ousting a spy. Daisy, thankfully, jumped in to save the day. “That’s horrid! A breach of privacy of all sorts! Do they look at other things that are written?”

“They steal diaries from our rooms,” Micheal said, rolling his eyes. “Not that I keep one, of course. How dreadfully feminine that would be.”

My objection was cut off by Daisy sharply jabbing her elbow into my ribs, and I remembered that I was supposed to be pretending to be a silly little girl. “Oh, really? Go on, which teacher does  _ that _ ?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment about what you thought of my writing! I thrive off feedback: let me know what you liked or what you'd like to see (or just scream)!


	8. Part Three - A Sickly Constitution (IV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After watching the Deepdean dancers perform, we sat down to write up our suspect list — not that Daisy and George planned on making this easy for us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The maps in chapter one are entirely incorrect but I have yet to update them - please do not rely on them! Leave a comment if you have any questions about the layout.

**HAZEL**

At the end of the hour-long bunbreak, we reconvened for a hurried meeting outside Old Wing Entrance.

“What did you get?” George snapped the second before Daisy could, and I watched the wrinkle at the top of her nose appear.

“We need to make a suspect list, which you two are important for,” Daisy said with absolute bitterness, hating that this case relies on the boys and their knowledge of their own school.

Alexander gave me a sympathetic look and pulled a face, and I cringed in echo to his feelings.

“We have a dance troupe to watch, don’t murder each other,” Alexander interjected with more force than I have ever heard him use to break up Daisy and George fighting like cat and dog.

Although Daisy looked surprised, George only rolled his eyes and said, “Alright, spoilsport. Come on, let’s go and watch some dancers and I can pretend that I’m interested in making eyes at them.”

With that, George powered forward down the hall to accost the captain of the Weston rugby team, ignoring the mistresses frantically shouting at the girls and boys to stay in two separate lines. Once George was out of earshot, Alexander muttered, “George is a puzzle.”

“Still won’t tell you who he likes, huh?” Daisy said, raising an eyebrow at him archly. I could hear the sarcasm, the tone that said that she didn’t really want to know, but he pounced on it as a conversion opportunity.

“Exactly! You would think he would tell me who he likes! George is no shrinking violet, he's obnoxious as all hell about anything and everything.”

“No, you're right…”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Violets are entirely the wrong flower. He ought to be giving you lavenders.”

* * *

After the dance performance, we gathered together in the shade by the Old Wing Entrance. I wrote out a list of every Weston student at the social and looked down at my list of Weston students, rows and rows of English names lined up across the pages of my casebook. _ Mukherjee _and _ Arcady _stuck out in the first column, and I took my pencil to the paper and scored a line through each name. “I think we can safely cross you out. Neither of you two keep a diary, do you?”

Alexander shook his head for both of them, and George adjusted his blazer. At once, both Daisy and I locked onto the faintly rectangular shape of a pocketbook outlined in the breast pocket of his blazer. “No,” Alexander said, smiling widely at me. “Neither of us do.”

Leaning over the list, Daisy elbowed me rather rudely in the ribs to make me stop staring and said, “Hold on, why is Balakrishnan here, if no other Seventh Formers are?” Her face was suddenly very close to mine, and I could smell her shampoo.

“They aren’t here because they can’t afford to miss their studies, but he’s here because he captains most of our sports teams, and we need him for the sporting tournaments,” George said, checking his nails. “That’s Alex and I ruled out. What about timings? We are doing this the _ Junior Pinkertons’ _ way, and there’s no argument about that: writing lists of clues and evidence, and what we think the timing of the case is. Alex, get your casebook out.”

Alexander, in a fluster, looked about here and there for his casebook and pencil. With a huff, George put a hand on his thigh and leant over his lap to fish the casebook out from a tangled heap of our blazers and pullovers and shoes. “Right. There you go, let’s start,” he said, oblivious to Alexander being very red to the tips of his ears.

“Right, Detectives,” Daisy announced, clapping her hands sharply. “So, we have deduced that Miller was probably planning to reveal somebody’s secret to your headmaster this afternoon and that the aforementioned somebody found out on Saturday evening.”

Nodding in agreement, I felt the understanding flowing between us. “So the… hypothesis is that they tried to poison Miller and failed, or that it wasn’t acting fast enough. It’s more than likely that it wasn’t acting fast enough if Miller felt ill the morning he died. Maybe they heard through the grapevine that Miller wasn’t dead yet and panicked, and so they murdered him and tried to remove all evidence of poison.”

In a flash of movement, Daisy grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “_ Yes_, Watson, excellent detective work!” she cried, sparkling at me. “And that would put the time of death between five-forty and nine, when you left the hotel!”

“Brilliant.” George and Daisy both had the same set expression, and he said, “Let’s start ruling out who definitely can’t have done it, based on timings. We can worry about who does and doesn’t have a diary with the remaining suspects.”

“You can cross out Bob and Otto,” Alexander offered, pointing to my list. “They were with us from the moment George got back from seeing Miller alive to when we left the hotel.”

“Wait.”

We all turned to George.

“I’m the only person who knew that Miller was seeing a doctor. I’m the only one who knew he was still alive that morning. No one apart from the doctor knew, and the doctor would have only spoken to Twitting, and we know that _ he _ didn’t say a word to any of the students because he would never.”

Catching on, Alexander said, “_ Yes_. You told me, Otto, and Bob about it all at the same time, at six when we were walking down to do our Prep in the drawing-room. We were the only three who knew until quarter to seven, when Bob told Thomas and Louis during Prep, and it spread across the entire room.”

“And the first person to leave the room after that was Simpson, on the hour! I remember that he got up just as the clock hit the hour, right? Meaning that we can narrow it down to anybody who left the main group of Weston students after seven! That narrows down our window of when it could have happened to two hours!”

With a withering glare, Daisy said, “Two hours _ too long _.”

The two of them glared at each other, and Alexander twisted his hands together, it was silent until I said, “Do you want to carry on staring at each other, or rule out some suspects?”

“_ Hazel Wong! _” George said in surprise, and his smile was genuine and dazzling. “Go on, let’s get to it.”

Beside me, I felt Daisy bristle. I knew that she _hated _the fact that this case relied on the knowledge of anybody who was not herself. In Hong Kong, she let me take the lead but England is _hers _and the idea of George and Alexander taking charge makes her squirm. She likes to be in control.

My Daisy Wells is peculiar that way.

Together, we ruled out the rest of the Fifth Form (Thomas Jenkins, Louis Manning, Isaac Fletcher, Samuel Burns, Rufus Moore, and Duke Elliot) and three boys from the Sixth Form (Nicolas Van der Velde, Aisen Spackman, and Jude Graham). All of our remaining students had left either breakfast or Prep that morning for an extended period of time. 

Despairing, we stared at our list of _eight _suspects, more than we have ever had on a case.

“Can we cross anyone out?” Alexander asked faintly.

“Lump those two together,” Daisy said, tapping the names ‘Marvin Taylor’ and ‘Micah Burton’. “Do any of those boys not keep diaries?”

“I don’t know for sure,” George admitted, and I realised once again what makes him different from Daisy: he admits to it. “I know the ones that _ do_: Marvin and Micah, and Thomas.”

“I know for a fact that Elliot doesn’t, but Otto does.” Alexander interjecting was quite unexpected, but George twinkled at him as he spoke and it made me feel sparkly as I watched the current flow between them. “Maybe Miller found out about Otto’s people — they’re Jewish and they live in Germany, girls — and Otto told his brother, and Elliot took matters into his own hands?”

“That’s one motive,” Daisy said, nodding approvingly. “Now for the other six.”

Looking calm as anything, George said, “Wait. Elliot’s fainted at the sight of blood before. Remember when he fell over on our Exeat afternoon last year?”

“Could he stomach committing the murder?” Alexander asked.

Snorting, Daisy replied, “Write that down, Hazel.”

With a peculiar look on his face, he said, “What’s so funny?”

“_ Stomach_,” George muttered, chuckling with a hand pressed over his mouth.

Burying his face in his hands, Alexander drew out an enormous sigh and told George, “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t!” came the cheerful reply.

# SUSPECT LIST

    1. **Elliot Gallagher.** MOTIVE: He has Jewish parents that live in Germany, and Bob thinks that they might be planning to flee. Elliot doesn’t keep a diary but his brother, Otto, does! OPPORTUNITY: Left Prep at 7:17 and got back at 7:42. ABILI: None yet. NOTES: He is known to have fainted at the sight of blood before — could he stomach committing the murder?
    2. **Marvin Taylor and Micah Wright**. MOTIVE: Both keep diaries where they doubtless documented some of their relationship — certainly enough to have them expelled and maybe even charged and convicted. Miller may have seized their diaries at some point. OPPORTUNITY: Left the main group of Weston students at 7:45 and came to breakfast late at 8:00. ABILI: None yet. NOTES: Could have committed the murder fast as a team?
    3. **Thomas Balakrishnan.** MOTIVE: Unknown, but definitely has something going on with his family. OPPORTUNITY: Left breakfast at 8:40 and rejoined the Weston group as they were leaving the hotel at 9:01. ABILI: None yet. NOTES: When he came back, he was wearing a different (older) Weston blazer and mismatched shoes, which he rushed to change again when George Mukherjee pointed it out.
    4. **Micheal Burton.** MOTIVE: None yet. OPPORTUNITY: Left breakfast at 8:23 and got back at 8:46. ABILI: None yet. NOTES: He has a girlfriend at Deepdean, and he had a secret of his shared the previous year.
    5. **Peter Nithercott.** MOTIVE: None yet. OPPORTUNITY: Left breakfast at 7:50 and came back at 8:15. ABILI: None yet. 
    6. **Finley Simpson.** MOTIVE: OPPORTUNITY: Left Prep at 7:00 and got back at 7:26. ABILI: None yet. NOTES: He has a limp — could he have made it up and down the stairs in time?
    7. **Isaac Jones.** MOTIVE: Is suspected among the boys in his year to be a homosexual. OPPORTUNITY: Left breakfast at 8:31 and got back at 9:51. ABILI: None yet. NOTES: Looked distressed and in a rush when he returned. The rumours about his disposition were relayed by Otto Gallagher, who was informed of it by his brother (Elliot Gallagher, another suspect who could be lying or spelling misinformation) over the holidays in ‘strict confidence’.

# TIMELINE

**Finley Simpson: **7:00 - 7:26

**Elliot Gallagher:** 7:17 - 7:42

**Peter Nithercott:** 7:50 - 8:15

**Marvin Taylor and Micah Wright:** 7:45 - 8:00

**Micheal Burton: **8:23 - 8:46

**Isaac Jones: **8:31 - 9:51

**Thomas Balakrishnan: **8:40 - 9:01

* * *

**DAISY**

When Hazel finished writing up our suspect list, she and Alexander fell into conversation about a particular Jane Austen novel with such a sunny understanding sparkling in the air between them that it made me prickle with an odd sort of annoyance that I didn’t quite like. I wondered then why Hazel _liked_ Alexander so much. He sparkled in a particular way at her that irritated me the more I was around it. In small doses, I can put up with Alexander Arcady and even _hug _him, and not entirely dislike him. But when he makes Hazel glow in that way, it makes my stomach twist.

George looked to be in similar spirits, and just as I was about to suggest something, he irritatingly opened his mouth and said, “Daisy and I can go and look in the woods around there.” He gestured away to his left, up Old Wing corridor and around the back of the San. “I dare say that anybody trying to dispose of evidence that they couldn’t dispose of before would do so there.”

“I was _just _about to say that,” I snapped, getting to my feet and pushing my plaits back over my shoulders. It delights me that George thinks I’m the same formal and strict way that I do, but why should he get to things quicker than me because I am thinking about Hazel?

Together, George and I walked up the outside of the Old Wing. The moment we rounded the corner behind the San, we turned to each other and said, at the exact same time, “What_ is _going on with you?”

“Ladies first,” he said, leaning back against the wall and fixing his cuffs. “I’m curious to hear why on earth you’re acting as if Alex has personally wronged you. I mean, more than usual.”

“Shut up,” I told him sharply, leaning beside him on his left. “Go on, why are you looking at Alexander as if he’s a mystery to solve?”

“Shit,” he muttered, an underlying implication of ‘am I that obvious?’. I wanted to shake his shoulders and tell him that he _is_, but it wouldn’t do for a lady to get violent. 

Putting on my most delicate voice, I exclaimed in wounded tones, “Mr Mukherjee, how dare you! And in front of a fucking lady, no less?”

He snorted. “You do have a sense of humour. Who knew?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. 

“What I’m curious about,” he continued, checking his nails absently, “is why on earth a young lady as confident as you has yet to make an advance on Hazel Wong.”

“You’re curious about that, and I’m curious about _ this _!” I shot out my right hand to grab at the small pocketbook in George’s blazer, but my hand didn’t even make it to the fabric.

Faster than I had ever seen him move, George grabbed my right arm with his left hand and slammed it into the wall. “Do _ not_, Daisy Wells.”

His voice was rather chilling, and my resolve did not waver because I am Daisy Wells, but I certainly reconsidered my approach. “Never pinned you as a violent person.”

“Don’t do that again and I won’t be,” he said, and he didn’t let go off of my arm.

“I don’t understand why you won’t show me!” I said, because I _ didn’t_. To me, it seemed the simplest thing in the world. I refuse to believe that I don’t understand things, despite the fact I know that emotional things get all mixed up in my head and the responses come out of my mouth quite wrong, even though they are perfectly _correct _inside my head. Even Hazel gives me peculiar looks when I demand answers from our suspects. I just don’t _understand _why people don’t put away their emotions and approach the case for what it is. It makes _no sense_, and neither do people.

I knew at that moment that George was making no sense, even though he thinks in the same way I do. He was acting slower than I was thinking, and the conversation was progressing impossibly slowly — everything emotional does. So I shot out my other hand and grabbed at his diary, and he yelled in shock and shoved me backwards.

My foot caught on a tuft of grass and I fell over backwards, dragging George with me. He fell down on the grass beside me with a gasp, and said, “Sorry.”

I remembered when Hazel pestered me about Martita at the Rue, and my stomach made the oddest sort of leap inside me: I got it _wrong _. “I’m not,” I replied. “I’m still curious.”

He sighed, and I looked over and he was smiling. “You’re in love with Hazel, aren’t you?”

I felt myself turn a most peculiar colour. Inside my mind, in a whirling rush of colours that moved too fast for me to even begin to write down every single thought that flew through my mind in that split second of deduction, I realised something, and accusingly snapped, “You’re in love with Alexander!”

Instead of denying it, he looked very drawn and serious when he replied, “And I’m going to patiently ignore it until it goes away, as all good feelings do.”

I was quite horrified. “That’s _ not _ how you’re supposed to deal with your feelings, George!”

“If you have any other suggestions, Wells, I would dearly love to hear them.” He wasn’t condescending, he simply sounded at a loss and that would not do, not for someone almost as clever as me.

“You’re an idiot. You should confess!”

Giving me a rather odd look, he replied, “Alright. And what do you suppose would happen after that?”

“Either he kisses you, or he doesn’t.” My statement explored the only two possible outcomes that I saw, and the lack of comprehension on George’s face infuriated me. 

“Surely you should understand why I _ can’t _ do that.”

A debate for us is not unusual, but the measured nature of our voices was. I preferred it that way, without raised voices and untimely shouting. “Alexander is different, isn’t he?” I said begrudgingly. “At least, you think he is.”

“Alex is different. Unequivocally.”

He said it in the most assured way possible, and I almost believed him. “If Alexander is such a special case, why are you so anxious?”

“If he tells anybody, I’m ruined. You say what happened to your brother’s reputation, and they didn’t even _confirm _his dalliance with Bampton. Three people is three more people than I ever planned to have know. This is dangerous, Daisy, in a way that you can’t understand.” There was no condescension in his voice; it was desolate with the facts.

Trying to break the tension, which has always been Hazel’s job, I replied, “I get the letters too, you know.”

He did smile then, a grin spreading across his face. I had to look away from his eyes because his expression was very bright and intense and I didn’t know what expression I ought to put on to match. “Ah, did you also get the full run-down of their last date?”

“Yes, and I’ve been meaning to complain to you about that.”

We sat in silence for a moment, but it was so unbearably long that I couldn’t stand it. Silence is supposed to be filled with unspoken conversation but I don’t understand that, not with anybody but Hazel and me. Whatever meaning George is trying to communicate, it is hitting an invisible wall between us and can hear only very loud silence. “Have you seen how he looks at you?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, sitting forward.

Thinking back to Cambridge, whirling through every memory of the weeks in a split second, I replied, “He looks at you like my brother looks at yours.”

“Which is how?”

For a moment, there was no way to describe it. There was no way to describe a look that I saw on his face in so many contexts I couldn’t possibly apply it to one. Putting a label on a look I have seen a murderer give my brother, my brother give a murderer, and George’s brother and my brother give each other… well, it felt quite impossible for a split-second. However, nothing ever escapes me for long and a description came to me in an instant. “Like he’s willing to break every rule to see you smile.”

“Hazel doesn’t look at you like that.”

Narrowing my eyes at him, I said, “No need to rub it in.”

“No.” He gave me a peculiar look. “She looks at you as if you hung the stars in the sky.”

* * *

**HAZEL**

When Daisy and George walked back to us, furiously swearing at each other in a joking way, Alexander called out, “Hey! George, Daisy!”

Daisy rolled her eyes, and I was about to scowl at her when I realised that George had a strange look on his face and that she was rolling her eyes at _him_. They rushed over and sat back down on the grass, Daisy with a bump and in a tumble of golden hair, and George sitting down gracefully and peering over at my casebook. “You managed to rule someone out?”

“Not yet!” I said. “We would need to do a recreation to be sure.”

“You know, for the sake of being thorough,” Alexander added, and Daisy gave him a look of begrudging approval. I smiled at her, pleased and quite smug that she was being forced to agree. She caught my eye and smiled back at me, and it felt like I was about to explode. “But… Simpson has a limp! Without Peter — Nithercott, one of our other suspects — assisting him, I don’t think he could have got to the second floor, killed Miller, and got back down in twenty-six minutes.”

I grinned at him, and so did George, and for a moment Daisy looked quite oddly golden and regal as she watched the two of us. “Good work, I suppose,” she said begrudgingly. “Your method of noting down timings is helpful, I must admit. And your knowledge of your school.”

George stuck his tongue out at her, and she stuck her middle finger up at him.

“We’ve made a drastic oversight,” he said, and we all turned to him. “We have _three _other detectives that we aren’t utilising. Someone go and find them!”

* * *

Later on, after Kitty, Beanie, and Lavinia had been brought up to speed (by Daisy and George in alternating bursts), we were scattered about the grass by Old Wing Entrance, absorbed in various tasks. Daisy and I were drawing out a map of the Majestic Hotel (which I have enclosed in the front of this case book), while Kitty and Beanie were trying to work out how to steal the diary of Micheal Burton’s girlfriend — Emmeline Moss, a girl in the form above us. Daisy had brought down her enormous book of Household Poisons from House, and Alexander was searching through it for poisons that can be prescribed and found in medicine. His search was for the possible poison used against Miller that didn’t take effect in time, and was the reason for the gory scene that I still couldn’t stomach thinking about.

Pressed up against the wall, George and Lavinia were deep in a recreation, trying to work out how long the murder would have taken. George had roped Lavinia into it, and she was enthusiastically pretending to kill George while he stared at his wristwatch and laughed at whatever she was muttering.

Alexander cast them jealous looks, and I knew why.

Peering at our suspect list, Kitty pointed right to Micheal Burton’s motive and said, “Who would kill someone as revenge for something that happened over a year ago? What’s the _ point _ of that?”

Daisy gave her a rather frosty look, and Kitty said, “Ah. Fallingford. Point taken.”

“I have to admit,” said Daisy, in a hurry to move away from the topic, “none of the Weston students strike me as the sort of person to go and behead someone, steal their organs, and then carry on like nothing’s happened.”

“Does anyone automatically strike you as that sort of person?” I asked, raising my eyebrows at her.

One by one, we all turned to look at the recreation taking place behind us, serious snaps of times interspersed with raucous laughter and George incredulously asking, “Are you _ enjoying _ this?” 

“...Lavinia?” Beanie suggested, and we all fell about laughing. Daisy sparkled most brilliantly, and I wanted to turn away from her trying to catch my eye but I couldn’t bring myself to, not when she wanted to share her happiness with me.

As we recovered from our gasps, Daisy turned to Alexander and asked, “Do you have anything?” quite rudely.

He ignored her, but it didn’t look as though he meant to. He was enraptured by a particular page of the book, reading faster and faster as he gripped the cover tighter with every word his eyes flitted over.

Suddenly, he sat up very straight and, with a grin on his face that looked rather peculiar in those circumstances, said, “Belladonna!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment about what you thought of my writing! I thrive off feedback: let me know what you liked or what you'd like to see (or just scream)!


	9. Part Four - The Secret Diary (I)

**HAZEL**

“Belladonna?” Daisy asked Alexander, turning to him as the wrinkle appeared at the top of her nose. “Really?”

Nodding excitedly, mindless of Daisy’s dismissive expression, he said, “Listen here! Hey, George! Lavinia, stop pretending to murder him, I’ve got something.”

With all of us staring, Alexander looked down to the book and began. “The symptoms of belladonna poisoning include dilated pupils, sensitivity to light, blurred vision, tachycardia, loss of balance, staggering, headache, rash, flushing, severely dry mouth and throat, slurred speech, urinary retention, constipation, confusion, hallucinations, delirium, and convulsions.”

George clapped his hands. “Yes! Alex, that’s great. All of those symptoms are things that Miller already suffered from. It wouldn’t have been noticed that anything was out of the ordinary other than a bad bout of illness.”

“Exactly!”

“Genius.”

I turned back to Alexander just in time to see his cheeks pink dramatically before he looked down, hiding his face behind the book. “‘Though widely regarded as unsafe, belladonna is taken by mouth as a sedative, to stop bronchial spasms in asthma and whooping cough, and as a cold and hay fever remedy. It is also used for Parkinson's disease, colic, inflammatory bowel disease, motion sickness, and as a painkiller.’” Still looking down, as if looking at George would make him lose his ability to speak (privately, I would not be shocked, given what I know his behaviour to be), he said, “Somebody could carry about a home remedy, or cough syrup, or pills! They’re all easy to overdose on, so they could be an innocent cure that somebody decided to use for ill. Right?”

George nodded. “Oh, do look up, Alex,” he teased, throwing a pebble at him. “See here, don’t you have a pocketbook that details murder methods?”

“Don’t make it sound like that, George!” he said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s for reference on cases. It’s been helpful more than once.”

“Indeed it has. Now, get it out and see what it says on belladonna poison or I’ll come and grab it myself.”

With a yelp, Alexander drew his blazer close and fumbled to get out the pocketbook. “It’s only a small paragraph, and the writing is  _ tiny _ .”

Before I could suggest a magnifier, Daisy had hers in her hand and was offering it out. “Here. We can’t afford to have you misreading, Arcady.”

Surprised, he took it with a fumble and held it over the book. “‘Ingesting just two to four berries can kill a human child. Belladonna is likely unsafe when taken by mouth. It contains chemicals that can be toxic. Side effects can include dry mouth, enlarged pupils, blurred vision, red dry skin, fever, fast heartbeat, inability to urinate or sweat, hallucinations, spasms, mental problems, convulsions, and coma.’”

“I can’t imagine somebody taking that to get better,” I said, quite shocked that it was supposed to heal.

“Then again, lots of things can poison you in just the right way if you take just the right amount,” Alexander said, closing the book and setting it on the grass.

Nodding in begrudging approval, Daisy said, “Have you read about the 1904 Olympic marathon?”

When Alexander said, “Yes!” and Kitty agreed too, the conversation devolved into tales of ridiculously unlikely coincidences and I rather preferred it to last Christmas, when Daisy and George took turns trying to frighten me with tales of gory murders, and even Alexander was entertained.

We occasionally drifted back to our suspect list, but not without an offhand comment that dragged us into another conversation. The baby that Kitty’s parents are expecting, Daisy and George complaining of their brother’s sappy letters, Beanie’s pony that she misses dreadfully, and my own baby brother. By the time the boys were called to go back to the Majestic Hotel at five, even Daisy was sorry to see them go.

* * *

**ALEXANDER**

Back at the Majestic Hotel, George and I held our breaths. We were sitting in our room and writing up our case notes in detail, George perfectly made-up and lounging on his bed, and myself halfway dressed into my dinner clothes, with my shirt mostly unbuttoned. At five forty-nine by George’s wristwatch, we heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Headmaster Twining snapped at all the boys talking on the landing, telling Elliot and Fletcher to go and talk in the drawing room downstairs if they so despised, and reminding them to be dressed smartly for dinner. “Eleven minutes, boys! Get dressed sharpish!”

George was at the door to our room in a flash, pretending to be fixing his clothes in the mirror beside the door. “Going down to the drawing room, Fletcher?” he asked, sounding as if he was mocking Twining’s tone.

“Being out of the school makes him twice as strict,” Isaac replied with a chuckle. Isaac is a mean and spitting sort of chap and never has a good thing to say about a soul.

I straightened up my uniform and strode to the door, laughing and making a jab at how Mr Gambino was trying to look like a competent teacher despite what we know his teaching style to be. Duke Elliot came out of his room, tying his tie and commenting that Headmaster Twining was being far too optimistic. “Checking on Miller as if he’s going to be awake! The man will be sick for a month. Not fit for teaching, if you ask me.”

The mention of Miller sent a stab of panic right through my heart, but I tilted my head up and retorted with mention of an old running joke that he was clearly trying to get the entirety of Weston sick in a sort of grand master plan.

George checked his watch and, as if the turn of his wrist set the rest of the evening in motion, Twining let out the most terrified scream I have ever heard.

* * *

We were out of the room and up the stairs in an instant, with an intensity that reminded me of our last case alone. We raced down the carpeted hall and towards Headmaster Twining. He bellowed for somebody to call the police while he kept watch, and for somebody else to fetch Mr Gambino from the drawing room. Without prompting, George ran to the telephone mounted on the wall by the stairs, and Isaac Jones, staying in the room opposite Miller’s with Lucas Graham, ran down the stairs to find Mr Gambino. “What’s gone on?” Bob asked, puffing up the stairs and coming to a stop beside me.

My heart was in my throat. I dislike corpses even more than Hazel does — sadness and shock can make me sick, but bodies really take the cake for the effect that they have on me. George often says that I need to build up resilience, and together we studied the deterioration of corpses by reading books with graphic detail. I knew what Miller’s body would look like after so many hours in the room, and I wished that I didn’t.

“I don’t know,” I managed, and then I took a breath and almost retched. The sickly stench filled my nose and I brought my sleeve up to cover it. “Oh! Christ, I think… I think that Miller’s died.”

“No, never!” Bob nearly laughed, and I reached out to punch his arm, scowling at him.

“Death isn’t funny,” I said, feeling as sick as I did when I was nearly slipping in blood on the Orient Express. “Oh— George!”

He rushed back over, somehow perfectly put together, if a little pale. “Coppers are on their way,” he said, almost spitting the words. “Coming to ruin it all, as usual.”

“Bolshies, the both of you!” Bob laughed, sauntering over to Headmaster Twining, asking if he could be of assistance.

“I’ll bet you tuppence that he’s boasting about his father,” George whispered in my ear, a hand on my shoulder. I turned to smile at him, and found his face surprisingly close to mine, twinkling eyes barely an inch from my own. Rather foolishly, I thought about doing something rather astonishingly un-schoolboy right then and there, and that something was not detecting.

Even though we had already done our bit of detecting earlier on, a luxurious twenty-five minutes when the girls are unused to more than one, it was infuriating to have to behave like schoolboys. We were sherperarded down into the drawing room of the hotel and lined up in strict rows, ordered to stay silent and not talk to each other. Silence is never good for me. I love talking, detecting, reading, because it fills up my head. Sitting alone with my thoughts pulled me back to the constant terror of the Orient Express, how Hazel had stared and Daisy had spat, how my grandmother had looked awfully guilty, and how I had refused to cry down the phone to my father as I explained the whole ordeal once we reached Istanbul.

George reached out and touched one of my hands from where it was screwing up the material of my trousers. In a series of taps and drags with his nails, he spelt out, A-R-E-Y-O-U-A-L-R-I-G-H-T.

I reached out and, on his knee, tapped out, O-R-I-E-N-T-E-X-P. Before I could get any further, he reached out and simply grabbed my hand. My heart flew into my throat at the contact and warmth prickled up my arm, and my head was awash with a bubbling heat. Hazel, I thought, simply must be told about this.

When the Deepdean police strode in, half of their number was dispatched upstairs to ruin the crime scene, while several paraded into the drawing room in their muddy boots and started bellowing. “Passports!” a large and brown-haired man with a ruddy complexion demanded.

I held my breath. I hate handing over my passport to any official. My name is Alexander Arcady, and my birthday and nationality are all well enough. However, the only problem is the ‘RUSSIAN ORTHODOX’ written in all capital letters when my religion is asked for. Only once have they not skimmed over the words.

When they announced that they would be arresting the suspicious parties, before doing a search, before interrogating suspects, before corresponding with the other half of their forces, I knew what was about to happen.

“You there!” the officer cried, and pointed right at George.

“I shan’t!” he shouted back, but words mean nought to policemen when you are somebody who looks like George. Thomas Balakrishnan went without a fight, and George went with his head held high and fury in his eyes.

Despairing, I clenched my fists at my sides as my classmates chatted around me. Even as Bob called it gross injustice and Rufus told him to quit being such a stuck-up prat, that’s the way the world works, I couldn’t pull myself into the conversation like I am usually so good at. Instead, I sat and hoped that my telegram had arrived on the desk of a certain London inspector.

* * *

**HAZEL**

We were sent to bed as usual, without any word of a murder discovered at the Majestic Hotel. Daisy was well and truly disappointed, but I was beyond relieved. Sometimes, it is nice to not hear your teachers say the word ‘murder’. At eleven o'clock, Daisy and I dressed in our dark Hong Kong tunics and trousers, and slipped out of the window. I have become rather good at climbing down drainpipes these days, but Daisy says that I make heavy weather of it every time. Her golden hair was tied up in a dark scarf and she looked quite like a dark stranger coming to save a princess in a tower. Daisy would much rather be the knight than any sort of helpless girl whiling away her days, and the thought made me smile.

Hand in hand, and it felt so warm and right and  _ wrong _ to hold her in that way, we ventured down to the school. It is truly Autumn now, and there is a gusty chill to match. When we slipped in through Old Wing Entrance using Daisy’s filched set of keys (Jones lost his keys at the start of the term, and by the time Daisy and I happened upon the lost keys half-buried in a flowerpot, he had already started using his spare set and deemed the first lost forever), it was a relief despite the thrilling fear of rulebreaking.

We rushed into Old Wing cloakroom with our mission. Kitty and Beanie had worked out, through second-hand gossip and Daisy’s charm convincing the First Form shrimps to ferrea around and find information for us, that Emmeline Moss, Micheal Burton’s girlfriend in the form above us, hid away her diary in the Old Wing Cloakroom. One of the shrimps told us, “One of the girls in her dorm thinks that she does it because she idolises a girl called Verity. Is the ghost?”

Daisy, who is oddly protective of Verity’s memory and Henry’s reputation, and talks as if the two of them were the same thing, had blown off the shrimp as kindly as she should before calling Emmeline Moss some very rude words for making light of our first case.

Daisy started at the left of the cloakroom, tearing through the coats at top speed. On the right, I started rummaging around much slower. As it always is, Daisy came upon the diary first. She tucked it into the waistband of her tunic and beamed at me, and my heart was racing with guilt so pressing that I thought I would faint there and then. “Come on, Watson,” she whispered with a grin, and we rushed hand-in-hand out of the school, Daisy forcing me to lock the door behind us as she tried to read the first page of the diary under the light of the moon.

* * *

“Do you think that we’ll solve the case?” I whispered to Daisy as she squashed herself in beside me, chattering excitedly about the diary.

“Of course we will!” she said, incensed. “Don’t you trust me, Watson?”

Then she turned to me and saw my face, and sighed. “You really worry about everything, don’t you?” Rolling her eyes, she reached out and grabbed both of my hands in her own, pressing her face very close to mine. “I’m a genius, Hazel. And… and so are you, though you don’t like to think it. We’ll solve the case. Nothing can beat us! We’re Wells and Wong, after all.”

She held my hands even tighter and stared right into my eyes, and all I could think of was how very blue her gaze was, and how much I wanted to lean in and kiss her. Instead, I whispered, “Of course,” and shook her hands away in a fluster. “We should sleep now.”

Rolling my eyes, Daisy burrowed down under the thin blanket, pressed right up against me, and was out like a light. I laid there in the dark for what felt like hours, staring at the ceiling and feeling Daisy’s body curled against mine, and wishing that I liked Alexander all over again. When I finally resigned myself to sleep, I turned on my side and faced Daisy, staring at her placid and sleeping face.

Before falling asleep, I leant forward and, with my eyes screwed shut, I kissed her on the cheek. “Goodnight, Daisy,” I whispered.

It had been almost a minute when, to my heart-racing horror, there was a bleary reply. “G’night, Hazel.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment about what you thought of my writing! I thrive off feedback: let me know what you liked or what you'd like to see (or just scream)!


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